Asgard (crater)
In this Galileo image, Asgard is centered in the pale region, just to the upper right of the image center, with surrounding concentric rings. Utgard is a smaller multi-ring structure superposed on the northern part of Asgard. The bright features are more recent impact craters, including Burr near the top, Tornarsuk at right, Njord below Tornarsuk, and Omolʹ above Tornarsuk to the right of Burr | |
| Location | Callisto |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 32°12′N 139°54′E / 32.20°N 139.90°E |
| Diameter | 1,400 km (870 mi) |
| Eponym | Asgard |
Asgard is the second largest multi-ringed basin (large impact crater) on Jupiter's moon Callisto. It is named after Asgard, the realm of the gods in Norse mythology. Asgard is located at a latitude of 32° and a longitude of 142°. The estimated crater retention age of Asgard is circa 4.04. The central part of Asgard is dominated by the domed Doh impact crater. Since multi-ring basins are some of the largest, oldest, and rarest types of craters, they are less understood. Images were first taken of the Asgard basin by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Later, the Galileo spacecraft had several close flybys near Callisto producing several images with resolution as high as 15 m/pixel. Based on Galileo data, the central region of Asgard is expected to be ~ 250 km in diameter, the ring structure reaches ~ 1880 km in diameter, and the crater is suspected to have a ~675 km rim diameter. The outer rim is representative of the ejecta or secondaries with the radii of ~675 km. The basin appears to have a shallow depth. Although hypothesized, there is no distinct crater rim, in the traditional sense, since most of the rings look similar.