3D print Clavius crater on the Moon
One of the Moon's largest and oldest craters on one print: the 231 km rim and the arc of smaller craters across its floor, from elevation data measured by lunar orbiters.
Where it is 58.62°S 14.73°W The Moon · near side
- Diameter
- About 231 km (143 mi)
- Floor craters
- A chain from 28 km to 12 km across
- Water
- 100 to 412 ppm, found by SOFIA in 2020
- Named for
- Christopher Clavius (1537-1612)
364 by 318 km of the Moon, 160 mm across
About Clavius crater
Clavius is an impact crater about 231 km (143 mi) across in the Moon's southern highlands, and NASA calls it among the largest and oldest craters on the Moon. A curving chain of smaller craters crosses its floor, shrinking from about 28 km to 12 km across, and younger craters sit on its worn rim.
In 2020 NASA's SOFIA airborne observatory found water molecules in sunlit soil in Clavius, at 100 to 412 parts per million. The crater was also the site of the fictional Moon base in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is named for the German mathematician Christopher Clavius.
Sources: IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Clavius, NASA SVS: Clavius, NASA: SOFIA discovers water on the sunlit Moon, NASA APOD: Tycho and Clavius
