&sq=Envato&lang=en&file=File:Stark_crater_AS15-M-1568.jpg) Apollo 15 mapping camera image | |
| Coordinates | 25°30′S 134°36′E / 25.5°S 134.6°E |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 49 km |
| Depth | 2.2 km |
| Colongitude | 187° at sunrise |
| Eponym | Johannes Stark |
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Stark is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the Moon. It lies to the southeast of the prominent crater Tsiolkovskiy, and north of Subbotin.
This is a heavily eroded crater with a jumbled outer rim and uneven interior. The pair of slightly smaller satellite craters Stark Y and Stark V are attached to the northwest and western exterior respectively, creating a triple-crater formation. (The designations Homer for Stark Y and Sappho for Stark V were suggested for these features, but the IAU rejected these names.) Within the interior of Stark is a small crater located just to the south of the midpoint.
In 2020, upon learning of Stark's support for the Nazi Party, Charles Wood, the chair of the Task Group for Lunar Nomenclature at the IAU, recommended to the IAU that the name "Stark" be replaced.[1] The name was dropped on August 12, 2020. Since then, this crater is officially unnamed.[2]
- ^ Philipp Ball (26 June 2020). "Astronomers unknowingly dedicated moon craters to Nazis". prospectmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
- ^ "Stark (crater)". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.