For the trance

Trance music

Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...

 group, see: Above & Beyond (band)

Above & Beyond (band)

Above & Beyond are a British trance music group formed in 2000 and consists of the members Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness, and Finnish Paavo Siljamäki. They have their own record label Anjunabeats, which releases trance and progressive music, and they also host their own weekly radio show Trance...

Tranquility Base (Latin: Statio Tranquillitatis) was the name given by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 astronaut

Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

 Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong

Neil Alden Armstrong is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon....

 to the landing site on the moon where the Apollo 11

Apollo 11

In early 1969, Bill Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective in August 1969 and announced his retirement as an astronaut. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was...

 Lunar Module Eagle made the first moon landing.
The lunar coordinates of Tranquility Base are 00°41′15″N, 23°26′00″E, which is located in the south-western corner of the lunar plain called the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) near the craters Sabine

Sabine (crater)

Sabine is a lunar crater that forms a nearly matching pair with Ritter to the northwest. The two rims are separated by a distance of only a couple of kilometers. To the west is the bowl-shaped crater Schmidt, and farther to the north are Manners and Arago....

 and Ritter

Ritter (crater)

Ritter is a lunar crater located near the southwestern edge of Mare Tranquillitatis. It is the northwestern member of a crater pair with Sabine to the southeast. The two rims are separated by a narrow valley only a couple of kilometers wide. To the northwest is the crater Dionysius, and to the...

, and a rille

Rille

Rille is typically used to describe any of the long, narrow depressions in the lunar surface that resemble channels. Typically a rille can be up to several kilometers wide and hundreds of kilometers in length...

 unofficially called 'U.S. Highway Number 1'.

Origin

Armstrong appears to have created the name on his own. His use of "Tranquility Base" surprised NASA Mission Control personnel, who had not heard it before. During simulations, the crew always referred to itself as "Eagle" before and after landing.

IAU

Unlike most names bestowed on lunar landmarks by Apollo astronauts, the International Astronomical Union

International Astronomical Union

The International Astronomical Union IAU is a collection of professional astronomers, at the Ph.D. level and beyond, active in professional research and education in astronomy...

 officially recognizes the designation 'Tranquility Base'. It is listed on lunar maps as Statio Tranquillitatis, in order to fit with the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

names that are ubiquitous on lunar maps.

External links

• USGS Planetary Gazetteer Entry