Namoluk
- ISS017-E-20446
- 21 October 2008
- 05:33 UTC
A small atoll of the Lower Mortlocks island group of southeastern Chuuk state, Namoluk is located 52 km northwest from Etal and 110 km south-southeast from Losap; Chuuk is situated 188 km to the northwest.
The atoll is triangular-shaped in outline, measuring 4.2 km along the eastern side (bottom-edge in the above image) up to 6 km in length along the southwestern face (left-edge in the image). The atoll rim is relatively broad in relation to atoll's overall size and encloses a small, but very deep, lagoon of 7.5 km² in area; depths in the centre of the lagoon reach 77 m.
There are five small islets totaling 0.8 km², with the three main islets each occupying a corner of the triangle. These are: Namoluk (31 ha) on the northwest, Toinom (21 ha) on the northeast and Amas (28 ha) on the southeast. The smaller islets of Lukan and Umap each cover less than 2 ha in area.
image: earth sciences and image analysis laboratory, nasa johnson space center
