Lunar craters Lunar craters Lunar craters are impact craters on Earth's Moon. The Moon's surface has many craters, almost all of which were formed by impacts. The word "crater" was adopted from the Greek word for vessel - (Κρατήρ a Greek vessel used to mix wine and water). Galileo built his first telescope in late 1609, and turned it to the Moon for the first time on November 30, 1609. He discovered that, contrary to general opinion at that time, the Moon was not a perfect sphere, but had both mountains and cup-like depressions. These were named craters by Schroeter (1791), extending
Solar eclipses on the Moon the surface appears not just black but red and brown (according to the Danjon scale) because the only sunlight available is refracted through the Earth's atmosphere on the edges of the Earth forming an atmospheric ring as it is shown in the sky in a painting by Lucien Rudaux. During eclipses with long totality, temperatures plunges but not in many parts of its mares especially Oceanus Procellarum and Mare Tranquillitatis, and mid to large craters (especially with basalt floor) mostly in the middle portion of the Moon, some young craters and a few distant large craters, notably Tycho (being located