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Io · Regio · 3rd largest named feature

Bosphorus Regio

"Ford of the Cow"; Io wandered through here while trying to escape from the gadfly.

What Bosphorus Regio is

Bosphorus Regio is a regio — a large area distinguished by its brightness or colour — on Io, 1,607 km across, centred at 2.3° S, 120.6° W. It is the 3rd largest named feature on Io and the 3rd largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

"Ford of the Cow"; Io wandered through here while trying to escape from the gadfly. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1997, 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
1,607 km
about the length of California
Coordinates
2.3° S, 120.6° W
Planetocentric, on Io
Name approved
1997
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Greek
Europe

What it would take to settle Bosphorus 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 2.3° S, 120.6° W.

Settlement difficulty here
75/ 100
Typical for this world
Io overall
76.7
1.7 easier than the median site
Ranked
2nd
of 260 named places on Io

What this spot has going for it is sunlight 100% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Io gets. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Bosphorus 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.