Nikolaev is a

crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...

on the

far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the hemisphere of the Moon that is facing away from Earth, the opposite hemisphere is the near side. It always has the same surface oriented away from Earth because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. C ...

. It is located north of the

Mare Moscoviense ; ) is a lunar mare that sits in the Moscoviense basin. It is one of the very few maria on the far side of the Moon. Geology Like Mare Marginis, this mare appears to be fairly thin. However, it is clearly centered within a large impact basin. ...

and south of the larger crater Von Neumann. Because it is on the far side of the Moon, it is not visible from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. It is named after the Soviet cosmonaut, Andriyan Nikolaev. The circular rim of this crater is not overlain by any significant craters but has been slightly eroded. It has an uneven edge and a wide inner wall. There is a shelf running around much of the wide inner edge where the material has slumped, and some terracing along the northeastern side. The interior floor is rugged in places, particularly in the eastern half, and is marked by several small impacts in the southern half. There is a small central rise near the midpoint.

References

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External links

* {{commons category-inline
L&PI photos of Nikolaev
* orldwind://goto/world=Moon&lat=35.11798&lon=151.05340&alt=250000&dir=0 Find this locationwith

NASA World Wind NASA WorldWind is an open-source (released under the NOSA license and the Apache 2.0 license) virtual globe. According to the website, "WorldWind is an open source virtual globe API. WorldWind allows developers to quickly and easily c ...

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Impact craters on the Moon