Statio Tianhe
What Statio Tianhe is
Statio Tianhe is a statio — a landing site — the only class named after a human arrival — on The Moon, 0 km across, centred at 45.5° S, 177.6° E in the Mare Ingenii quadrangle. It is the 2017th largest named feature on The Moon and the 3rd largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Ancient Chinese name for the Milky Way, a sky river that separates Niulang and Zhinyu in the Chinese folk tale âThe Cowherd and the Weaver Girl"; Changâe-4 landing site. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2019, under the theme it applies to every statio on The Moon. Of the 4 features of this class catalogued on The Moon, the naming categories run China (3), Latin (1).
What it would take to settle Statio Tianhe
The Moon scores 29.1 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 45.5° S, 177.6° E.
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 — outside the ice-bearing latitudes.
Computed from Statio Tianhe's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 84% of the model's weight had a basis here, and one axis was dropped as not applicable to The Moon (radiation geometry). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on The Moon 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.