Vasco da Gama - Lisbon, Portugal and Moon Crater Vasco da Gama - Extraterrestrial Locations on Waymarking.com

Vasco da Gama (Sines or Vidigueira, Alentejo, Portugal, c. 1469 – December 24, 1524 in Kochi, India) was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the European Age of Discovery, and the first person to sail directly from Europe to India.

Commissioned by King Manuel I of Portugal to find Christian lands in the East (the King, like many Europeans, was under the impression that India was the legendary Christian Kingdom of Prester John), and to gain Portuguese access to the commercial markets of the Orient, da Gama extended the sea route exploration of his predecessor Bartolomeu Dias, who had first rounded Africa's Cape of Good Hope in 1488, culminating a generation of Portuguese sea exploration fostered by the nautical school of Henry the Navigator.

Da Gama's voyage was successful in establishing a sea route from Europe to India that would permit trade with the Far East, without the use of the costly and unsafe Silk Road caravan routes, of the Middle East and Central Asia. However, the voyage was also hampered by its failure to bring any trade goods of interest to the nations of Asia Minor and India. The route was fraught with peril: only 54 of his 170 voyagers, and two of four ships, returned to Portugal in 1499. Nevertheless, da Gama's initial journey led directly to a several-hundred year era of European domination through sea power and commerce, and 450 years of Portuguese colonialism in India that brought wealth and power to the Portuguese throne

He died in the city of Cochin on Christmas Eve in 1524. His body was first buried at St. Francis Church, Fort Kochi, Kochi, then later his remains were returned to Portugal in 1539 and re-interred in Vidigueira in a splendid tomb. The Monastery of the Hieronymites (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos) in Belém was erected in honor of his voyage to India and is where is body rests now.


Vasco da Gama Crater is a lunar impact crater that is located near the western limb of the Moon. It is named for the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. It lies to the south of the walled plain Einstein, due south of Dalton. Attached to the southwestern rim of Vasco da Gama is the somewhat smaller crater Bohr.

The northern and southern parts of the rim of Vasco da Gama have been heavily eroded by impacts, with the western and eastern rims being more intact. The smaller crater Vasco da Gama S intrudes into the southeastern rim, and just to its southwest is Vasco da Gama T. Near the northeastern rim is Vasco da Gama B.

The interior floor of this crater contains a system of rilles designated the Rimae Vasco da Gama. These primarily lie in the western two-thirds of the floor, and run roughly north-south, sometimes bending near their ends. There is a low central ridge near the mid-point of the interior.

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