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Io · Regio · 9th largest named feature

Mycenae Regio

Greek; in some legends, Io was transformed there.

What Mycenae Regio is

Mycenae Regio is a regio — a large area distinguished by its brightness or colour — on Io, 594 km across, centred at 36.6° S, 165.0° W. It is the 9th largest named feature on Io and the 8th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Greek; in some legends, Io was transformed there. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1979, under the theme it applies to every regio on Io. Of the 10 features of this class catalogued on Io, the naming categories run Greek (9), Italy (1).

Feature class
a large area distinguished by its brightness or colour
Diameter
594 km
about 1.7 times shorter than the length of Italy
Coordinates
36.6° S, 165.0° W
Planetocentric, on Io
Name approved
1979
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Greek
Europe

What it would take to settle Mycenae Regio

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 36.6° S, 165.0° W.

Settlement difficulty here
76.2/ 100
Typical for this world
Io overall
76.7
0.5 easier than the median site
Ranked
97th
of 260 named places on Io

What this spot has going for it is sunlight 80% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Io gets. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Mycenae Regio'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 regio features on Io

All 10 regiones on Io — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.