Smithsonian magazine's 22nd Annual Photo Contest | Made possible through the support of MPB.com

20th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Natural World
Lunar Snowman

In this photo, we can see a group of craters that look like a snowman. This "snowman" is made up of three large craters known (from bottom to top) as Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus, and Arzachel. To the left of this, we can see the "Rupes Recta" or the straight wall. (The dark line spanning the interior of the crater on the left.) This surface feature is a large fault on the moon's surface roughly sixty-eight miles in length, about one and a half miles in width, and over seven hundred feet tall.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 07.2019
Date Uploaded: 11.2022
Photo Location: Mt. Vernon, New York, United States of America
Copyright: © Evan Iervolino