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Io · Planum · 67th largest named feature

Argos Planum

Where Io was captured by Zeus.

What Argos Planum is

Argos Planum is a planum — a high plain or plateau — on Io, 171 km across, centred at 47.9° S, 42.2° E. It is the 67th largest named feature on Io and the 8th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Where Io was captured by Zeus. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1985, under the theme it applies to every planum on Io. Of the 8 features of this class catalogued on Io, the naming categories run Greek (7), Ethiopia (1).

Feature class
a high plain or plateau
Diameter
171 km
about 1.7 times the width of Yellowstone
Coordinates
47.9° S, 42.2° E
Planetocentric, on Io
Name approved
1985
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Greek
Europe

What it would take to settle Argos Planum

Io scores 76.7 as a world. That number is the same for every square metre of it — but sunlight, water, radiation and the ground under your feet are not. This is the same question asked at 47.9° S, 42.2° E.

Settlement difficulty here
76.5/ 100
Typical for this world
Io overall
76.7
0.2 easier than the median site
Ranked
117th
of 260 named places on Io

What this spot has going for it is ground flat ground — the easiest thing to land on and build across. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Argos Planum's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 84% of the model's weight had a basis here, and 2 axes were dropped as not applicable to Io (earth link, known ground). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Io and are already counted in the world's own index, not again here.

What this cannot see: elevation. Slope, local shadowing and the polar “peaks of eternal light” — ridge tops near the poles of a barely tilted world that catch sun almost continuously while a crater floor kilometres away never does — need a terrain model this does not have. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually why.

What is next to it

The largest planum features on Io