Cauchy is a small
lunar impact crater on the eastern
Mare Tranquillitatis. It was named after French mathematician
Augustin-Louis Cauchy
Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (, ; ; 21 August 178923 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. He ...
.
It is circular and symmetric, with a small interior floor at the midpoint of the sloping inner walls. Due to the high
albedo of this bowl-shaped formation, it is particularly prominent at full Moon.
Cauchy lies between the Rupes Cauchy and the Rimae Cauchy, as described below.
South of Rupes Cauchy are two
lunar domes designated Omega (ω) Cauchy and Tau (τ) Cauchy. They lie to the south and southwest of Cauchy respectively. Each lunar dome has a small depression at its crest, which is likely to be a volcanic vent rather than an impact crater. The vent at the top of Omega Cauchy is called
Donna.
Rupes Cauchy

To the south of Cauchy is a 120-km
fault in the surface named the
Rupes Cauchy
Rupes Cauchy is a 120 km-long escarpment at on the surface of the Moon. It faces southwest, and rises about 200–300 m. It is located in the northeastern portion of the Mare Tranquillitatis, and is named after the nearby crater Cauchy.
The ...
, which forms a series of cliffs or escarpments. This wall roughly parallels the Rima Cauchy to the north.
Rima Cauchy
To the north of Cauchy is the
rille named Rima Cauchy, a 210-kilometer-long
graben
In geology, a graben () is a depressed block of the crust of a planet or moon, bordered by parallel normal faults.
Etymology
''Graben'' is a loan word from German, meaning 'ditch' or 'trench'. The word was first used in the geologic contex ...
.
Satellite craters
By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Cauchy.
Cauchy A is shown as ''Hussein'' on a 1974 map
[LTO-61A3 Cauchy]
Lunar Topographic Orthophotomap (LTO) Series based on Apollo 15 photographs, but the name was not approved by the
IAU, which officially designated the crater name in 2006.
[Cauchy A](_blank)
Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN)
References
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External links
LTO-61A3 Cauchy— L&PI
topographic map
{{Craters on the Moon: C-F
Augustin-Louis Cauchy
Impact craters on the Moon