Petit (Crater)

Petit
	Apollo 15 image
Diameter	5.04 km
Depth	1 km
Colongitude	297° at sunrise

Short description: Crater on the Moon

Petit is a small, bowl-shaped lunar impact crater that is located on the northwestern edge of the Mare Spumans. The crater has a prominent ray system. The name is appropriate, since petite means small in French. But it was actually named in honor of Alexis Thérèse Petit, a French physicist.

The crater lies to the south of the crater Townley, and east of Condon. Farther to the northwest is Apollonius. Petit was previously designated Apollonius W before being given a name by the IAU in 1976.^[1]

Oblique view from Apollo 10 (in color)
Interior of Petit, showing flat crater floor of impact melt with no visible craters, from Apollo 17
Oblique view from Apollo 16
Oblique view from Apollo 17

External links

LTO-62C4 Condon — L&PI topographic map

References

↑ Petit, Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN)

Andersson, L. E.; Whitaker, E. A. (1982). NASA Catalogue of Lunar Nomenclature. NASA RP-1097.
Blue, Jennifer (July 25, 2007). "Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature". USGS. http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/.
Bussey, B.; Spudis, P. (2004). The Clementine Atlas of the Moon. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81528-4.
Cocks, Elijah E.; Cocks, Josiah C. (1995). Who's Who on the Moon: A Biographical Dictionary of Lunar Nomenclature. Tudor Publishers. ISBN 978-0-936389-27-1. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780936389271.
McDowell, Jonathan (July 15, 2007). "Lunar Nomenclature". Jonathan's Space Report. http://host.planet4589.org/astro/lunar/.
Menzel, D. H.; Minnaert, M.; Levin, B.; Dollfus, A.; Bell, B. (1971). "Report on Lunar Nomenclature by the Working Group of Commission 17 of the IAU". Space Science Reviews 12 (2): 136–186. doi:10.1007/BF00171763. Bibcode: 1971SSRv...12..136M.
Moore, Patrick (2001). On the Moon. Sterling Publishing Co.. ISBN 978-0-304-35469-6. https://archive.org/details/patrickmooreonmo00patr.
Price, Fred W. (1988). The Moon Observer's Handbook. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-33500-3.
Rükl, Antonín (1990). Atlas of the Moon. Kalmbach Books. ISBN 978-0-913135-17-4.
Webb, Rev. T. W. (1962). Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes (6th revised ed.). Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-20917-3. https://archive.org/details/celestialobjects00webb.
Whitaker, Ewen A. (1999). Mapping and Naming the Moon. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-62248-6.
Wlasuk, Peter T. (2000). Observing the Moon. Springer. ISBN 978-1-85233-193-1.

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[1] Petit, Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN)