Rumford Crater Honors American-British Physicist Sir Benjamin Thompson

Summary: The lunar far side’s Rumford Crater honors American-British physicist Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, who discerned heat as a form of motion.

Details of Lunar Astronautical Charts (LAC) 104 (left) and 105 (right) show the lunar far side’s Rumford Crater system of parental Rumford, west side satellites Q and T (LAC 104) and east side satellites A, B, C and F (LAC 105); courtesy NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) / GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) / ASU (Arizona State University): U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

The lunar far side’s Rumford Crater honors American-British physicist Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, who determined from his experiments in thermodynamics that heat is a form of energy.

Rumford Crater is a lunar impact crater that classifies as a complex crater. Inward slumping of portions of the inner sides of the crater’s walls have created shelves or terraces that particularly accentuate Rumford’s eastern side. An outward protrusion along the crater’s eastern edge breaks Rumford’s roundish outline. A small ridge protrudes above the interior floor near the midpoint.

Rumford’s dark interior floor distinguishes the crater from the surrounding terrain. The crater’s lower albedo indicates that the absorption of light by Rumford’s surface materials exceeds their light reflectance. Contrastingly, the composition of the surrounding terrain encourages the return of solar radiation to space.

Rumford Crater is centered at minus 28.81 degrees south latitude, minus 169.8 degrees west longitude, according to the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. The southern hemisphere crater’s northernmost and southernmost latitudes occur at minus 27.81 degrees south and minus 29.81 degrees south, respectively. The complex crater obtains easternmost and westernmost longitudes of minus 168.66 degrees west and minus 170.95 degrees west, respectively. Rumford Crater has a diameter of 60.83 kilometers.

Rumford’s westernmost extent of minus 170.95 degrees west approaches the lunar antemeridian by 9.05 degrees. As the geographical antipode, or diametrical opposite, of the moon’s prime meridian, the antimeridian marks the moon’s 180th meridian and occurs on the lunar far side. At zero degrees longitude, the prime meridian links the north and south poles on the lunar near side. Both meridians demarcate east and west lines of longitude on their respective sides of the moon.

Rumford Crater parents six satellites in the far side’s southeastern quadrant. Four satellites (A, B, C, F) fan from their parent’s eastern side. Two satellites (Q, T) neighbor on their parent’s western side. Rumford T nestles along its parent’s western side. Rumford T’s diameter of 111.67 kilometer dwarfs its parent’s 60.83 kilometer-diameter and garners T recognition as the Rumford Crater system’s largest crater.

Rumford Crater honors American-British physicist Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (March 26, 1753-Aug. 21, 1814). The International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted Leeuwenhoek as the crater’s official name in 1970, during the organization’s XIVth (14th) General Assembly, held in Brighton, United Kingdom, from Tuesday, Aug. 18, to Thursday, Aug. 27. Prior to its formal naming, Rumford Crater was known as Crater 381.

Approval of the letter designation for the Rumford Crater system’s six satellites was granted in 2006. Prior to its official naming, Rumford T was known as Crater 380.

Massachusetts-born Benjamin Thompson was a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775-Sept. 3, 1783). In July 1778, during his Loyalist military service, Thompson conducted experiments on gunpowder. The Royal Society, known officially as The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, published Thompson’s report of his gunpowder findings in the 1781 issue of Philosophical Transactions, the Society’s official publication. He was elected as a Fellow of The Royal Society (FRS) on April 22, 1779.

After the war’s end, Thompson relocated to London. He became Sir Benjamin Thompson with his knighthood in 1784 by King George III (June 4, 1738-June 4, 1738).

In 1785, Sir Benjamin entered service in the Electorate of Bavaria (Kurfürstentum Bayern) as an aide-de-camp to Charles Theodore (Dec. 11, 1724-Feb. 16, 1799), Elector of Bavaria, Count Palatine of the Rhine. In 1791, he was made an Imperial Count (Reichsgraf) of the Holy Roman Empire. Sir Benjamin’s selection of Rumford as his territorial suffix commemorated Rumford (now Concord), New Hampshire, the town where the Hall Street family estate of his first wife, Sarah Walker Rolfe Thompson (Aug. 6, 1739-Jan. 19, 1792), was located.

Sir Benjamin’s almost lifelong fascination with heat and temperature accounted for his most important scientific achievement. He reported his critical discovery of heat as a form of motion in a paper entitled “An Experimental Enquiry Concerning the Source of the Heat Which Is Excited by Fiction,” which was published in the 1798 issue of Philosophical Transactions.

The takeaways for Rumford Crater, which honors American-British physicist Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, are that the far side lunar impact crater occurs in the southern hemisphere near the 180th meridian; that the complex crater parents six satellites; and that the Rumford Crater system’s namesake is credited with the critical discernment of heat as a form of energy.

Detail of Shaded Relief and Color-Coded Topography Map shows lunar far side’s Rumford Crater (upper center) system’s proximity to the lunar prime meridian (180 degrees longitude) as a far side southeastern quadrant crater system: U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Details of Lunar Astronautical Charts (LAC) 104 (left) and 105 (right) show the lunar far side’s Rumford Crater system of parental Rumford, west side satellites Q and T (LAC 104) and east side satellites A, B, C and F (LAC 105); courtesy NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) / GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) / ASU (Arizona State University): U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/Lunar/lac104_wac.pdf and https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/Lunar/lac105_wac.pdf

Detail of Shaded Relief and Color-Coded Topography Map shows lunar far side’s Rumford Crater (upper center) system’s proximity to the lunar prime meridian (180 degrees longitude) as a far side southeastern quadrant crater system: U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/moon_farside.pdf

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