The
crater chain which runs beyond the southern tip of Muller in a relatively straight line towards Ptolemaeus appears to be continuous along the crest of the southern wall of Muller.
Last year, Bottke and his colleagues proposed that a
crater chain might develop when an object passes so close to Earth it almost scrapes the surface.
During the 1960s, when human and spacecraft scrutiny of the Moon amplified the need for many new names, selenographers extended Latin's use to other landform types such as catena, dorsum, and rupes, for
crater chain, ridge, and scarp.
Another mysterious feature is the Davy
crater chain (L51).
The best examples are a nameless straight line that cuts across the northeast edge of the crater Brenner, and a
crater chain southeast of Riccius.
The Davy
crater chain (marked on some Moon maps as Catena Davy) is a 45-km-long alignment of more than a dozen small craters, most of them 1 to 2 km wide.
THE NECTARIS REGION IS BLESSED with the magnificent
crater chain of Catharina, Cyrillus, and Theophilus.
Using these statistics, Bottke and his colleagues find that the lunar surface should bear only a single
crater chain and the Earth's none at all.
Imbrium does have radial structures extending in many directions, with tightly spaced secondary
crater chains prominent around the crater Ptolemaeas to the south.
Jr., 'Making
Crater Chains on the Earth and Moon with Planetary Tidal Forces,' LPSC XXVIII, abstract 1062
Supporting evidence comes from a study of tightly packed
crater chains on two of Jupiter's icy moons, Ganymede and Callisto.