The surface of the Moon has many features, including mountains and valleys, craters, and maria—wide flat areas that look like seas from a distance but are probably solidified molten rock. Some of these features are listed.
Lunar nearside with major Lakr and craters labeled
Lunar maria (singular mare) are large, dark, regions of the Moon. They do not contain any water, but are believed to have been formed from molten rock from the Moon's mantle coming out onto the surface of the Moon. This list also includes the one oceanus and the features known by the names lacus, palus and sinus. The modern system of lunar nomenclature was introduced in 1651 by Riccioli.[1] Riccioli's map of the Moon was drawn by Francesco Maria Grimaldi, who has a crater named after him.[2]
There is also a region on the Lunar farside that was briefly misidentified as a mare and named Mare Desiderii (Sea of Desire). It is no longer recognized. Other former maria include:
Mare Parvum[4] ("Small Sea"), immediately to the east of Inghirami
Some sources also list a Palus Nebularum ("Marsh of Mists") at 38.0° N, 1.0° E, but the designation for this feature has not been officially recognized by the IAU.
The lunar craters are listed in the following subsections. Where a formation has associated satellite craters (smaller associated craters), these are detailed on the main crater description pages.
The heights of the isolated mountains or massifs listed here are not consistently reported across sources. In the 1960s, the US Army Mapping Service used elevation relative to 1,737,988 meters from the center of the Moon. In the 1970s, the US Defense Mapping Agency used 1,730,000 meters. The Clementine topographic data published in the 1990s uses 1,737,400 meters.
This list is not comprehensive, and does not list the highest places on the Moon. Clementine data show a range of about 18,100 meters from lowest to highest point on the Moon. The highest point, located on the far side of the Moon, is approximately 6500 meters higher than Mons Huygens (usually listed as the tallest mountain).
Mountains are referred to using the Latin word mons (plural montes).
The Moon's surface exhibits many other geological features. In addition to mountains, valleys, and impact craters, the following surface features have received names in the Lunar nomenclature, many of them named after a nearby crater or mountain.
The continental areas between the seas were given comparable names by Giovanni Battista Riccioli,[8] but were opposite the names used for the seas. Thus there were the lands of sterility (Terra Sterilitatis), heat (Terra Caloris), and liveliness (Terra Vitae). However these names for the highland regions are no longer used on recent maps, and Terrae are not officially recognized as standard lunar nomenclature by the International Astronomical Union.[9]
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. Bibcode:1971SSRv...12..136M. doi:10.1007/BF00171763. S2CID122125855.
