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Io · Eruptive center · 47th largest named feature

Thor

Norse god of thunder.

What Thor is

Thor is an eruptive center — the active source of an eruption — on Io, 240 km across, centred at 39.2° N, 133.1° W. It is the 47th largest named feature on Io and the 6th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Norse god of thunder. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2006, under the theme it applies to every eruptive center on Io. Of the 8 features of this class catalogued on Io, the naming categories run Japan (1), Greek (1), Germany (1), Georgia (1).

Feature class
the active source of an eruption
Diameter
240 km
about the length of the Grand Canyon
Coordinates
39.2° N, 133.1° W
Planetocentric, on Io
Name approved
2006
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Naming category
Norse
Europe

What it would take to settle Thor

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 39.2° N, 133.1° W.

Settlement difficulty here
78.8/ 100
Harder than most of this world
Io overall
76.7
2.1 harder than the median site
Ranked
225th
of 260 named places on Io

What this spot has going for it is sunlight 77% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Io gets. What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Thor'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 eruptive center features on Io