Kuiper is a small

lunar Lunar most commonly means "of or relating to the Moon". Lunar may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Lunar'' (series), a series of video games * "Lunar" (song), by David Guetta * "Lunar", a song by Priestess from the 2009 album ''Prior t ...

impact crater An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters ...

in a relatively featureless part of the

Mare Cognitum Mare Cognitum (Latin ''cognitum'', the "Sea that has Become Known") is a lunar mare located in a basin or large crater which sits in the second ring of Oceanus Procellarum. To the northwest of the mare is the Montes Riphaeus mountain range, part ...

. It is a circular, cup-shaped feature with only some minor wear. It was named after Dutch-American astronomer

Gerard Kuiper Gerard Peter Kuiper (; ; born Gerrit Pieter Kuiper; 7 December 1905 – 23 December 1973) was a Dutch astronomer, planetary scientist, selenographer, author and professor. He is the eponymous namesake of the Kuiper belt. Kuiper is c ...

in 1976. Kuiper was the Project Scientist for the

Ranger program The Ranger program was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar sur ...

. This crater was previously identified as Bonpland E. The

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

-flooded crater Bonpland lies to the east at the edge of the Mare Cognitum. To the east-southeast of Kuiper crater is the crash landing site of the

Ranger 7 Ranger 7 was the first space probe of the United States to successfully transmit close images of the lunar surface back to Earth. It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program. Launched on July 28, 1964, Ranger 7 was de ...

probe, the first American

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...

to photograph the Moon.

References

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External links

Kuiper at The Moon Wiki

LTO-6D2 Kuiper
— L&PI

topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but historic ...

* {{cite web, last = Wood , first = Chuck , date = October 12, 2013 , url = https://www2.lpod.org/wiki/October_12,_2013 , title = Age Dating a Moon Photo , publisher = Lunar Photo of the Day Impact craters on the Moon Gerard Kuiper