Richardson (lunar crater)

This article is about the crater on the moon. For the Martian crater, see Richardson (Martian crater).

Richardson

LRO image
Coordinates	31°06′N100°30′E / 31.1°N 100.5°E / 31.1; 100.5
Diameter	141 km
Depth	Unknown
Colongitude	262° at sunrise
Eponym	Owen W. Richardson

Oblique view from Apollo 14, facing northwest

Richardson is a large lunar impact crater located on the Moon's far side, just behind the eastern limb. It lies to the south of the huge walled plain Harkhebi, and to the east-southeast of the crater Vestine. Just to the northeast is Szilard, and to the southeast is Artamonov.

A substantial portion of the crater is overlain by Maxwell, which lies across the rim to the southwest. The northeastern rim of Maxwell reaches the approximate midpoint of Richardson, and together with the outer rampart covers nearly half the interior floor. The remainder of the rim of Richardson is worn and eroded, with Richardson W intruding into the northwestern rim and Richardson E lying along the eastern side.

The surviving interior floor of Richardson is relatively level, but marked with a number of small craterlets. The rim and interior floor is covered by a number of wispy deposits from the Giordano Bruno impact, located just to the north-northeast.

Naming

Prior to formal naming in 1979 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), ^[1] this crater was known as Crater 114. ^[2] . The crater is named after Owen Willans Richardson (1879–1959), a British physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928 for his pioneering work on thermionic emission. The IAU officially adopted the name "Richardson" for this crater in 1979 in recognition of his contributions to science ^[3] .

Satellite craters

By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Richardson.

Richardson	Latitude	Longitude	Diameter
E	31.9° N	103.6° E	22 km
W	33.5° N	98.3° E	23 km

References

1. Richardson, Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN)
2. Lunar Farside Chart (LFC-1A)
3. Cocks, Elijah E.; Cocks, Josiah C. (1995). Who's who on the moon : a biographical dictionary of lunar nomenclature. Internet Archive. Greensboro : Tudor Publishers. p. 339. ISBN   978-0-936389-27-1.

• 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.