MARE IMBRIUM, WAXING GIBBOUS 8.7 DAYS OLD

moon The Moon is just barely in its waxing gibbous phase, 9.5 days from new, just 1.1 days after first quarter. The terminator, the sunrise line at left, has crept about halfway across Mare Imbrium, revealing its eastern side. Western Mare Serenitatis is at right, Mare Vaporum at the lower right corner. Imbrium is surrounded by the Apennines (lower center) and the Alps (upper right). The large, dark floored, crater Plato (top center, 109 km in diameter) and Eratosthenes (bottom center) are just seeing the first light of the new lunar day, their floors still shadowed. Archimedes (83 km wide, 2 km deep) sits at dead center.