Bessel (crater)
lunar crater
Bessel is a small lunar impact crater that is located in the southern half of the Mare Serenitatis. Despite its small size, this is the largest crater to lie entirely within the mare. It lies to the north-northeast of the crater Menelaus.
The crater was named after the German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846). Its designation was officially adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1935. The name was incorporated into lunar nomenclature by German astronomer Johann Mädler in 1837.
Description
This crater dates to the Copernican period of the lunar geologic timescale. It is circular and bowl-shaped with a rim that has a higher albedo than the floor or the surrounding mare. The outer rim is not significantly worn, and there are no features of note on the interior, apart from some slumping of material from the inner walls to the floor. Bessel is not of sufficient size to have developed the terrace structures of larger craters.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bessel (crater)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.