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
Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve the possibility of ambush by Shoshone warriors along the Snake River such as the one that occurred at Massacre Rocks, which today is memorialized in Idaho's Massacre Rocks State Park. After gold was discovered in the Salmon River area of Idaho, a group of immigrants persuaded an Illinois-born trapper and trader named Tim Goodale to lead them through the cutoff. A large wagon train left in July 1862 and met up with more wagons at Craters of the Moon Lava Field. Numbering 795 men and 300 women and children, the unusually large group was relatively unmolested during its journey and