MOSCOW, September 1 Craters as small as the one left on the surface of the Moon by the Russian automatic probe Luna-25 , do not get their own names, said Evgeny Slyuta, head of the Laboratory of Geochemistry of the Moon and Planets at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry (GEOKHI).
Earlier, NASA published a photo of a new crater on the surface of the moon, which, according to the US space administration, is a trace of the fall of the Luna-25 mission. An image taken by the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) probe on August 24 shows a depression that is not in the June 2020 photo.
«Such craters have been discovered from the fall of other international spacecraft, but such small craters are not called,» Sluta said.
He clarified that the smallest craters on the Moon, which received names, were from several tens of meters in size.
At the same time, according to Sluta, there are still many unnamed craters on the Moon, which are gradually being given names. The process of naming a crater or a hitherto unnamed celestial body usually does not proceed quickly, the head laboratory of GEOKHI noted. The name is put forward by scientists and proposed to the International Astronomical Union. There, consideration of the application can take up to several years.
At the same time, he did not rule out that in the future, although this is unlikely, the name «Luna-25» may be given to the 42-kilometer crater Pontecoulant G, within which the station fell. Sluta explained this by the fact that several craters bear the name Pontecoulant — one about 90 kilometers in diameter and about a dozen others smaller around it, which also have an additional letter designation.
«To be honest, I did not expect so quickly, I assumed that within six months they would discover. But then, it means that there was just a convenient flight path for the apparatus. It was assumed that the diameter of the crater would be somewhere from 5 to 10 meters, well, that's how it is,» the scientist assessed the image from the American apparatus.