Apollo (crater)
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| Crater characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 36.1° S, 151.8° W |
| Diameter | 538 km |
| Depth | Unknown |
| Colongitude | 161° at sunrise |
| Eponym | Project Apollo |
Apollo is an enormous impact crater located in the southern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon. This formation dwarfs the large Oppenheimer crater that is located next to the western rim. The crater Barringer lies across the northern wall. To the southeast is the Anders crater, and the Kleymenov crater is just to the east of the rim.
The Apollo walled-plain is a double-ringed formation with the inner ring roughly half the diameter of the outer wall. Both the outer wall and the interior have been heavily worn and eroded by subsequent impacts, so that significant parts of the outer and inner walls now consist of irregular and incised sections of mountainous arcs.
The interior floor is covered in a multitude of craters of various sizes. Several of the more notable craters have received names. The IAU used the eponyms of people associated with the Apollo program when designating some of these formations.
The Dryden crater is attached to the west-northwestern exterior of the inner ring. Chaffee is a similar-sized crater that lies partly across the southwest section of the inner ring. In the southeast part of the outer crater is the Borman crater. Inside the inner ring are the Resnik, McAuliffe, and Onizuka craters, and the Jarvis-McNair crater pair. The Smith crater lies across the northern part of the inner ring.
In 2006 the IAU also provisionally accepted a proposal to name seven interior craters to honor the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The proposed crater names are Husband, McCool, Chawla, L. Clark, M. Anderson, D. Brown and Ramon. Three of the crater names include the respective astronaut's first initials to distinguish them from the Anderson, Brown and Clark craters.
Sections of the Apollo crater interior have been resurfaced with lava, leaving patches of the floor with a lower albedo than the surroundings. There is a large patch of this lunar mare in the middle part of the inner ring, which contains some ray system markings. A long stretch of the mare lies along the southern part of the crater. There is also a smaller section near the western rim.
[edit] References
- See the reference table for the general listing of literature and web sites that were used in the compilation of this page.
- Blue, Jennifer (2006-07-27). Names for the Columbia astronauts provisionally approved (English). USGS Astrogeology. Retrieved on 2006-06-08.
