Geological Chronicle
Cockcroft is a 92.16 km impact crater on the Moon's far side. It has only been observed and photographed from orbit. Fitzgerald lies to its northeast, Evershed to its southeast, and Van den Bergh directly to its east.
The crater dates to the Pre-Nectarian period on the lunar geologic timescale. Its rim is heavily worn and eroded by later impacts, and the satellite crater Cockcroft N intrudes into its south-southwestern edge. Small craters line the rim to the southeast, east, and north-northwest; another lies along the eastern inner wall. The floor is uneven in places, especially in the southern half, and contains multiple small and tiny craterlets. A crater remnant appears to overlay the southwest quadrant.
The crater is named for Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, a British nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate (1897–1967). He received the 1951 Nobel Prize in physics. The International Astronomical Union adopted the crater's designation in 1970.