Apollo (crater)

Apollo
	Oblique Lunar Orbiter 5 image
Coordinates	36°06′S 151°48′W / 36.1°S 151.8°WCoordinates: 36°06′S 151°48′W / 36.1°S 151.8°W
Diameter	537 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 crater Oppenheimer that is located next to the western rim. The crater Barringer lies across the northern wall. To the southeast is the crater Anders, and Kleymenov is just to the east of the rim.

Apollo is a double-ringed walled plain (or basin) whose inner ring is 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, some of which have been named for people associated with the Apollo program or other NASA projects.

Sections of Apollo's 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.

Prior to formal naming in 1970 by the IAU,^[2] the crater was known as Basin XVI.^[3]

Topographic map
Gravity map based on GRAIL

Interior craters[]

Three craters are named after the crew of Apollo 8. In the southeast part of Apollo is Borman crater, named after commander Frank Borman. Near the southeastern margin of Apollo is Anders crater, named after William Anders. On the eastern margin is Lovell crater, named after Jim Lovell.

Many craters within and adjacent to the Apollo impact have been named to honor deceased NASA employees.

Dryden 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. Inside the inner ring are the craters Resnik, McAuliffe and Onizuka, and the Jarvis–McNair crater pair. The crater Smith lies across the northern part of the inner ring.

In 2006 the IAU approved a proposal to name seven interior craters to honor the astronauts killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.^[4]^[5]

The craters L. Clark (LC), Chawla (C), D. Brown (DB), M. Anderson (MA), McCool (M), Ramon (R), and Husband (H). Lunar Orbiter 5 image.

Crater	Coordinates	Diameter	Name source
Chawla	42°48′S 147°30′W / 42.8°S 147.5°W / -42.8; -147.5	15 km	Kalpana Chawla
D. Brown	42°00′S 147°12′W / 42.0°S 147.2°W / -42.0; -147.2	15 km	David McD. Brown
Husband	40°48′S 147°54′W / 40.8°S 147.9°W / -40.8; -147.9	29 km	Richard D. Husband
L. Clark	43°42′S 147°42′W / 43.7°S 147.7°W / -43.7; -147.7	16 km	Laurel B. S. Clark
McCool	41°42′S 146°18′W / 41.7°S 146.3°W / -41.7; -146.3	21 km	William C. McCool
M. Anderson	41°36′S 149°00′W / 41.6°S 149.0°W / -41.6; -149.0	17 km	Michael P. Anderson
Ramon	41°36′S 148°06′W / 41.6°S 148.1°W / -41.6; -148.1	17 km	Ilan Ramon

Three of the crater names include the respective astronaut's first initials to distinguish them from the existing craters called Anderson, Brown and Clark.

References[]

^ Don E. Wilhelms & Charles J. Byrne (23 January 2009). "Stratigraphy of Lunar Craters".
^ Apollo, Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN)
^ Lunar Farside Chart (LFC-1A)
^ Blue, Jennifer (2006-07-27). "Names for the Columbia astronauts provisionally approved". USGS Astrogeology. Archived from the original on 30 June 2006. Retrieved 2006-06-08.
^ Blue, Jennifer (2006-08-30). "Provisional Names Approved". USGS. Archived from the original on 2006-10-09. Retrieved 2007-05-07.

Andersson, L. E.; Whitaker, E. A. (1982). NASA Catalogue of Lunar Nomenclature. NASA RP-1097.
Blue, Jennifer (July 25, 2007). "Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature". USGS. Retrieved 2007-08-05.
Bussey, B.; Spudis, P. (2004). The Clementine Atlas of the Moon. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81528-4.
Cocks, Elijah E.; Cocks, Josiah C. (1995). Who's Who on the Moon: A Biographical Dictionary of Lunar Nomenclature. Tudor Publishers. ISBN 978-0-936389-27-1.
McDowell, Jonathan (July 15, 2007). "Lunar Nomenclature". Jonathan's Space Report. Retrieved 2007-10-24.
Menzel, D. H.; Minnaert, M.; Levin, B.; Dollfus, A.; Bell, B. (1971). "Report on Lunar Nomenclature by the Working Group of Commission 17 of the IAU". Space Science Reviews. 12 (2): 136–186. Bibcode:1971SSRv...12..136M. doi:10.1007/BF00171763. S2CID 122125855.
Moore, Patrick (2001). On the Moon. Sterling Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-304-35469-6.
Price, Fred W. (1988). The Moon Observer's Handbook. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-33500-3.
Rükl, Antonín (1990). Atlas of the Moon. Kalmbach Books. ISBN 978-0-913135-17-4.
Webb, Rev. T. W. (1962). Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes (6th revised ed.). Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-20917-3.
Whitaker, Ewen A. (1999). Mapping and Naming the Moon. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-62248-6.
Wlasuk, Peter T. (2000). Observing the Moon. Springer. ISBN 978-1-85233-193-1.

External links[]

Media related to Apollo (crater) at Wikimedia Commons

[1] Don E. Wilhelms & Charles J. Byrne (23 January 2009). "Stratigraphy of Lunar Craters".

[2] Apollo, Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN)

[3] Lunar Farside Chart (LFC-1A)

[4] Blue, Jennifer (2006-07-27). "Names for the Columbia astronauts provisionally approved". USGS Astrogeology. Archived from the original on 30 June 2006. Retrieved 2006-06-08.

[5] Blue, Jennifer (2006-08-30). "Provisional Names Approved". USGS. Archived from the original on 2006-10-09. Retrieved 2007-05-07.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

v t Craters on the Moon: C–F
C	C. Herschel C. Mayer Cabannes Cabeus Cailleux Cai Lun Cajal Cajori Calippus Cameron Campanus Campbell Cannizzaro Cannon Cantor Capella Capuanus Cardanus Carlini Carlos Carmichael Carnot Carol Carpenter Carrel Carrillo Carrington Cartan Carver Casatus Cassegrain Cassini Catalán Catharina Cauchy Cavalerius Cavendish Caventou Cayley Celsius Censorinus Cepheus Chacornac Chadwick Chaffee Challis Chalonge Chamberlin Champollion Chandler Chang Heng Chang-Ngo Chant Chaplygin Chapman Chappe Chappell Charles Charlier Chaucer Chauvenet Chawla Chebyshev Chernyshev Chevallier Ching-Te Chladni Chrétien Cichus Clairaut Clark Clausius Clavius Cleomedes Cleostratus Clerke Coblentz Cockcroft Collins Colombo Compton Comrie Comstock Condon Condorcet Congreve Conon Cook Cooper Copernicus Cori Coriolis Couder Coulomb Courtney Cremona Crile Crocco Crommelin Crookes Crozier Crüger Ctesibius Curie Curtis Curtius Cusanus Cuvier Cyrano Cyrillus Cysatus
D	D. Brown da Vinci Daedalus Dag Daguerre Dale d'Alembert Dalton Daly Damoiseau Daniell Danjon Dante Darney D'Arrest D'Arsonval Darwin Das Daubrée Davisson Davy Dawes Dawson De Forest de Gasparis de Gerlache De La Rue De Moraes De Morgan De Roy De Sitter De Vico De Vries Debes Debus Debye Dechen Delambre Delaunay Delia Delisle Dellinger Delmotte Delporte Deluc Dembowski Democritus Demonax Denning Desargues Descartes Deseilligny Deslandres Deutsch Dewar Diana Diderot Dionysius Diophantus Dirichlet Dobrovol'skiy Doerfel Dollond Donati Donna Donner Doppelmayer Doppler Douglass Dove Draper Drebbel Dreyer Drude Dryden Drygalski Dubyago Dufay Dugan Dunér Dunthorne Dyson Dziewulski
E	Eckert Eddington Edison Edith Egede Ehrlich Eichstadt Eijkman Eimmart Einstein Einthoven Elger Ellerman Ellison Elmer Elvey Emden Encke Endymion Engel'gardt Eötvös Epigenes Epimenides Eratosthenes Erlanger Erro Esclangon Esnault-Pelterie Espin Euclides Euctemon Eudoxus Euler Evans Evdokimov Evershed Ewen
F	Fabbroni Fabricius Fabry Fahrenheit Fairouz Faraday Faustini Fauth Faye Fechner Fedorov Felix Fényi Feoktistov Fermat Fermi Fernelius Fersman Fesenkov Feuillée Fibiger Finsch Finsen Firmicus Firsov Fischer Fitzgerald Fizeau Flammarion Flamsteed Fleming Florensky Florey Focas Fontana Fontenelle Foster Foucault Fourier Fowler Fox Fra Mauro Fracastorius Franck Franklin Franz Fraunhofer Fredholm Freud Freundlich Fridman Froelich Frost Fryxell Furnerius

Oblique Lunar Orbiter 5 image
Coordinates	36°06′S 151°48′W / 36.1°S 151.8°W / -36.1; -151.8Coordinates: 36°06′S 151°48′W / 36.1°S 151.8°W / -36.1; -151.8
Diameter	537 km^[1]
Depth	Unknown
Colongitude	161° at sunrise
Eponym	Project Apollo

v t Craters on the Moon: A–B
A	Abbe Abbot Abel Abenezra Abetti Abul Wafa Abulfeda Acosta Adams Aepinus Agatharchides Agrippa Airy Aitken Akis Alan Al-Bakri Albategnius Albert Al-Biruni Alden Alder Aldrin Alekhin Alexander Alfraganus Alhazen Aliacensis Al-Khwarizmi Almanon Al-Marrakushi Aloha Alpetragius Alphonsus Alter Ameghino Amici Ammonius Amontons Amundsen Anaxagoras Anaximander Anaximenes Anděl Anders Anderson Andersson Andronov Ango Angström Ann Annegrit Ansgarius Antoniadi Anuchin Anville Apianus Apollo Apollonius Appleton Arago Aratus Archimedes Archytas Argelander Ariadaeus Aristarchus Aristillus Aristoteles Armiński Armstrong Arnold Arrhenius Artamonov Artem'ev Artemis Artsimovich Aryabhata Arzachel Asada Asclepi Ashbrook Aston Atlas Atwood Autolycus Auwers Auzout Avery Avicenna Avogadro Azophi
B	Baade Babakin Babbage Babcock Back Backlund Baco Baillaud Bailly Baily Balandin Balboa Baldet Ball Balmer Banachiewicz Bancroft Banting Barbier Barkla Barnard Barocius Barringer Barrow Bartels Bawa Bayer Beals Beaumont Becquerel Bečvář Beer Behaim Beijerinck Beketov Béla Bel'kovich Bell Bellinsgauzen Bellot Belopol'skiy Belyaev Benedict Bergman Bergstrand Berkner Berlage Bernoulli Berosus Berzelius Bessarion Bessel Bettinus Bhabha Bianchini Biela Bilharz Billy Bingham Biot Birkeland Birkhoff Birmingham Birt Bi Sheng Bjerknes Black Blackett Blagg Blancanus Blanchard Blanchinus Blazhko Bliss Bobillier Bobone Bode Boethius Boguslawsky Bohnenberger Bohr Bok Boltzmann Bolyai Bombelli Bondarenko Bonpland Boole Borda Borel Boris Borman Born Borya Bosch Boscovich Bose Boss Bouguer Boussingault Bowditch Bowen Boyle Brackett Bragg Brashear Braude Brayley Bredikhin Breislak Brenner Brewster Brianchon Bridgman Briggs Brisbane Bronk Brouwer Brown Bruce Brunner Buch Buffon Buisson Bullialdus Bunsen Burckhardt Bürg Burnham Büsching Butlerov Buys-Ballot Byrd Byrgius