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Phobos · Dorsum · 1st largest named feature

Kepler Dorsum

Johannes; German astronomer (1571-1630).

What Kepler Dorsum is

Kepler Dorsum is a dorsum — a ridge — on Phobos, 15 km across, centred at 45.0° S, 4.0° E. It is the 1st largest named feature on Phobos and the 1st largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Johannes; German astronomer (1571-1630). The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1987.

Feature class
a ridge
Diameter
15 km
about the length of Manhattan
Coordinates
45.0° S, 4.0° E
Planetocentric, on Phobos
Name approved
1987
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Germany
Europe

What it would take to settle Kepler Dorsum

Phobos scores 48.7 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 45.0° S, 4.0° E.

Settlement difficulty here
50/ 100
Typical for this world
Phobos overall
48.7
1.3 harder than the median site
Ranked
13th
of 20 named places on Phobos

What this spot has going for it is temperature about -46 °C mean at this latitude. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Kepler Dorsum's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 68% of the model's weight had a basis here, and 3 axes were dropped as not applicable to Phobos (radiation geometry, earth link, known ground). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Phobos 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