What are moon craters?

Answer 1

The word crater (meaning bowl-shaped) is applied to two different phenomena.

On planets and moons, meteor craters are the circular depressions caused by the impacts of other objects, mainly smaller asteroids and meteoroids. They are prominent on the Moon and on the planet Mercury. Some objects hit Earth in the past, but only a few landmarks still exhibit their characteristic bowl shape.

The other use is to describe a volcanic caldera, or inner depression within a volcano. Many dormant volcanoes have solidified craters in their peaks, some with lakes or glaciers.

Answer 2

A moon crater is an extremely large hole that was caused by meteors and space debris striking the moon's surface. By extension, it can be a metaphorical reference to a crater-like object somewhere else.

Answer 3

There are craters on the moon because the Moon, like the Earth, gets bombarded with meteorites from Space. The Moon, though, has no atmosphere and therefore the craters do not get eroded away by weather as they do on earth.

Answer 4

Impact craters, mostly left over from the early period of the Solar System. The Moon is tectonically inactive, so volcanic craters aren't represented, although lava flows are responsible for the maria ("seas") that make the near side of the Moon so interesting (people see faces, rabbits, etc. in their patterns).

Why only the near side? The Earth's gravity causes tides on the Moon, just as the Moon causes tides on the Earth. Ofcourse, the tides on the Earth are mainly noticable in the ocean - there are land tides, but these are only a few centimeters - whereas the tides on the Moon are rock tides and the pull is constantly in one direction.

Answer 5

Impacts by meteors are the source of craters on the Moon. As there is no atmosphere on the Moon, the meteors do not burn up as happens in Earths atmosphere.

Answer 6

Moon craters are like the craters on every body in the Solar System: the physical evidence of impacts by meteoroids, which may be small asteroids or fragments of comets.

Answer 7

Flying debris in space, such as meteors, hit the moon and it forms craters.

Answer 8

A crater is a large cavity on the surface of a planet or moon caused by an explosion or impact of a meteorite or other celestial body.

Answer 9

Craters can also be caused by volcanoes or other geologic forces. A crater is basically just a symmetrical hole.

Answer 10

Meteors!