Montes Cordillera is a

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

range on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. This feature forms the outer wall of peaks that surround the

Mare Orientale Mare Orientale (Latin ''orientāle'', the "eastern sea") is a lunar mare. It is located on the western border of the near side and far side of the Moon, and is difficult to see from an Earthbound perspective. Images from spacecraft have reveal ...

impact basin, the inner ring being formed by the

Montes Rook Montes Rook is a ring-shaped mountain range that lies along the western limb of the Moon, crossing over to the far side. It completely encircles the Mare Orientale, and forms part of a massive impact basin feature. This range in turn is encircled ...

. The center of the range is located at selenographic

coordinate In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The order of the coordinates is sign ...

s 17.5° S, 81.6° W, and the diameter is . This range of peaks lies across the southwestern limb of the Moon, so that they are observed from the side from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. The western extreme is approximately 116° W, on the

far side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealis ...

of the Moon. The northern part of the range lies just to the south of the lunar

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

, while the southern extent reaches about 38° S. The inner face of the range is distinguished by an uneven, ring-shaped plain surrounding the Montes Rook, while the outer extent apparently consists of a wide blanket of

ejecta Ejecta (from the Latin: "things thrown out", singular ejectum) are particles ejected from an area. In volcanology, in particular, the term refers to particles including pyroclastic materials (tephra) that came out of a volcanic explosion and magma ...

features deposited during the formation of the Mare Orientale. These have formed various ridges and valleys radial to the mare, and have heavily modified nearby pre-existing crater formations. Along the inner side of the range to the northeast is a small

lunar mare The lunar maria (; singular: mare ) are large, dark, basaltic plains on Earth's Moon, formed by ancient asteroid impacts on the far side on the Moon that triggered volcanic activity on the opposite (near) side. They were dubbed , Latin for 'seas' ...

feature named the Lacus Autumni, or Autumn Lake. To the northeast of the range here is the crater pair of Schlüter and Hartwig. The latter crater has been significantly modified by ejecta from Mare Orientale, while the former is a younger feature formed after this supposed impact. The southeastern portion of the range contains the craters

Krasnov Krasnov (russian: Краснов) is a Russian family name, derived from the word ''krasota'', a diminutive for ''krasa'', "beauty". Its feminine counterpart is Krasnova. It may refer to: * Aleksandr Krasnov (born 1960), Russian cyclist * Aleksand ...

and Shaler. To the southeast of the latter formation is a radial valley formation named the Vallis Bouvard. Further to the south and east are another pair of radial valleys named the Vallis Baade and Vallis Inghirami. A similar radial valley, Vallis Bohr, lies to the north of the Montes Cordillera, to the west of the crater Bohr. The name ''Cordillera'' means a chain of mountains in the

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

References

{{Reflist Cordillera, Montes