Petzval is a
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 that lies in the southern latitudes of the
Moon's
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 ...
. This crater is located to the south of the larger
Lippmann Lippmann is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Alexandre Lippmann (1881–1960), French Olympic champion fencer
* Bernard Lippmann, American physicist, known for the Lippmann–Schwinger equation
* Edmund Oscar von Lippman ...
and to the north of
Doerfel. It was namer after the
Hungarian-German inventor
Joseph Petzval
Joseph Petzval (6 January 1807 – 17 September 1891) was a mathematician, inventor, and physicist best known for his work in optics. He was born in the town of Szepesbéla in the Kingdom of Hungary (in German: Zipser Bela, now Spišská Belá in ...
.
This is a moderately worn crater formation with features that have become rounded and less well defined due to impact erosion. There are only a few small craterlets along parts of the rim and inner wall. Some faded
terrace structures appear along parts of the inner wall to the east and south. Within the interior are small craters in the southwest and northeast sections of the floor. Near the midpoint is a worn central peak.
Petzval lies to the southwest of the
Mendel-Rydberg Basin, a 630 km wide impact basin of
Nectarian
The Nectarian Period of the lunar geologic timescale runs from 3920 million years ago to 3850 million years ago. It is the period during which the Nectaris Basin and other major basins were formed by large impact events. Ejecta from Nectaris for ...
age, and it is on the southeast margin of the Pre-Nectarian
South Pole-Aitken Basin.
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 Petzval.
References
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Impact craters on the Moon