Sentia
What Sentia is
Sentia is a crater — a circular depression, almost always an impact scar — on Vesta, 16.5 km across, centred at 38.4° S, 170.8° E. It is the 74th largest named feature on Vesta and the 58th largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Amaesia Sentia; mentioned by Valerius Maximus as an instance of a female who pleaded her own cause before the praetor; called âAndrogyneâ for having a manâs spirit with a female body. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2014, under the theme it applies to every crater on Vesta.
What it would take to settle Sentia
Vesta scores 56.2 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 38.4° S, 170.8° E.
What this spot has going for it is sunlight — 81% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Vesta gets. What works against it is water — same as everywhere else on this world.
Computed from Sentia'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 Vesta (radiation geometry, earth link, known ground). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Vesta 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 crater features on Vesta
All 90 craters on Vesta — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.