Shahrazad (crater)
Encyclopedia
Shahrazad is a 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...

 on Saturn
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...

's moon Enceladus
Enceladus (moon)
Enceladus is the sixth-largest of the moons of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface...

 first discovered by the Voyager spacecraft
Voyager 2
The Voyager 2 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space...

. It is located at 48.2° North Latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...

, 195.1° West Longitude
Longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....

 and is approximately 18.5 kilometers across. Shahrazad is the middle crater of a prominent crater triplet on Enceladus' anti-Saturnian hemisphere (there is no evidence that the impacts are related or were formed from break-up of a single body, like Shoemaker-Levy 9
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9
Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 was a comet that broke apart and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of solar system objects. This generated a large amount of coverage in the popular media, and the comet was closely observed by...

). Voyager images revealed very little about this crater, however, higher resolution views of Shahrazad taken by the Cassini Spacecraft during a close flyby on March 9, 2005 reveal significant north-south fracturing that runs through all three craters of the triplet. Deep canyons mark the northern and eastern portions of Shahrazad's rim. Some evidence for viscous relaxation can be seen, but it is not nearly as significant as at Dunyazad
Dunyazad (crater)
Dunyazad is a large crater on Saturn's moon Enceladus first discovered by the Voyager spacecraft. It is named after Dunyazad, the sister of Scheherazade in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights....

 to its immediate south or at Aladdin
Aladdin (crater)
Aladdin is a crater in the northern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Enceladus. Aladdin was first discovered in Voyager 2 images. It is located at 63.1° North Latitude, 16.9° West Longitude and is 34 kilometers across...

 elsewhere on the satellite.

Shahrazad is named after the Persian story-teller Scheherazade
Scheherazade
Scheherazade , sometimes Scheherazadea, Persian transliteration Shahrazad or Shahrzād is a legendary Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights.-Narration :...

 from 1001 Nights, the Heroine who told 1001 tales over as many nights to Shahryar in order to secure her freedom.
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