Krusenstern (crater)

Krusenstern
Coordinates26°12′S 5°54′E / 26.2°S 5.9°E / -26.2; 5.9
Diameter47 km
Depth1.6 km
Colongitude355° at sunrise
EponymAdam Johann von Krusenstern

Krusenstern is a lunar impact crater that lies amidst the battered terrain in the southern part of the Moon's near side. Nearly attached to the east-southeast rim is the crater Apianus. Less than one crater diameter to the southwest is the prominent Werner. Krusenstern is intruding into a large circular plain to the north designated Playfair G. Playfair itself lies to the northeast.

Krusenstern is 47 kilometers in diameter, and its walls reach a height of 1,600 meters.[1][2] Its outer rim has been heavily worn by impact erosion, leaving an irregular ring of rising ridges and an inner wall incised by impacts. A joined pair of craters, including Krusenstern A, lie along the eastern rim. The interior floor of Krusenstern is a nearly featureless plain, marked only by a few tiny craterlets.[3] The crater is from the Pre-Nectarian period, 4.55 to 3.92 billion years ago.[1]

It is named after Adam Johann von Krusenstern, an early 19th-century Baltic German explorer in Russian service.[4][1]

  1. ^ a b c Autostar Suite Astronomer Edition. CD-ROM. Meade, April 2006.
  2. ^ "IDENTIKIT". luna.e-cremona.it. Retrieved October 25, 2007.[dead link]
  3. ^ Rükl, Antonín (1990). Atlas of the Moon. Kalmbach Books. ISBN 0-913135-17-8.
  4. ^ "Krusenstern (crater)". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.