Mare Cognitum is a lunar mare

Lunar mare

The lunar maria are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth's Moon, formed by ancient volcanic eruptions. They were dubbed maria, Latin for "seas", by early astronomers who mistook them for actual seas. They are less reflective than the "highlands" as a result of their iron-rich compositions, and...

 located in a basin or large crater

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...

 which sits in the second ring of the Procellarum basin. The basin material is of the Lower Imbrian

Lower Imbrian

In the lunar geologic timescale, the Early Imbrian epoch occurred between 3850 million years ago to about 3800 million years ago. It overlaps the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment of the inner solar system. The impact which created the huge Mare Imbrium basin occurred at the start of the epoch...

 epoch

Epoch (geology)

An epoch is a subdivision of the geologic timescale based on rock layering. In order, the higher subdivisions are periods, eras and eons. We are currently living in the Holocene epoch...

, while the basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

ic mare material is of the Upper Imbrian

Upper Imbrian

In the Lunar geologic timescale, the Late Imbrian epoch occurred between 3800 million years ago to about 3200 million years ago. It was the epoch during which the mantle below the lunar basins partially melted and filled them with basalt...

 epoch. To the northwest of the mare is the Montes Riphaeus

Montes Riphaeus

Montes Riphaeus is an irregular range of lunar mountains that lie along the west-northwestern edge of Mare Cognitum, on the southeastern edge of Oceanus Procellarum. The range trends generally from north-northeast to south-southwest...

 mountain range, part of the rim of the buried crater or basin containing the mare. It is so named for all of the space probes that had landed there previously (Luna 5

Luna 5

Luna 5 was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 5. It was designed to continue investigations of a lunar soft landing. The retrorocket system failed, and the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface at the Sea of Clouds....

, Ranger 7

Ranger 7

Ranger 7 was the first US space probe to successfully transmit close images of the lunar surface back to Earth. It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program. Launched on 28 July 1964, Ranger 7 was designed to achieve a lunar impact trajectory and to transmit...

, Surveyor 3

Surveyor 3

Surveyor 3 was the third lander of the American unmanned Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon. Launched on April 17, 1967, Surveyor 3 landed on April 20, 1967 at the Mare Cognitum portion of the Oceanus Procellarum...

, Apollo 12

Apollo 12

Apollo 12 was the sixth manned flight in the American Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon . It was launched on November 14, 1969 from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, four months after Apollo 11. Mission commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L...

).

The Fra Mauro formation

Fra Mauro formation

The Fra Mauro formation is a lunar geological formation on the near side of the Moon that served as the landing site for the American Apollo 14 mission in 1971. It is named after the 80-kilometer-diameter crater Fra Mauro, located within it...

, the landing site of Apollo 14

Apollo 14

Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the American Apollo program, and the third to land on the Moon. It was the last of the "H missions", targeted landings with two-day stays on the Moon with two lunar EVAs, or moonwalks....

, is located near Mare Cognitum.