Geological Chronicle
Debye lies in the Moon’s northern hemisphere, on its far side as seen from Earth. It sits south of Chappell, southwest of Rowland, and east of D'Alembert. The rim as a whole has a roughly polygonal shape, though the outer edge is battered and somewhat distorted from a circle.
Impact modification has straightened the northeast rim. The most heavily eroded section is there, where overlapping craters intrude into the side. Small impacts notch the western rim, while Perkin overlies the southern rim. Its outer rampart reaches partway across the southern floor, and its ejecta covers an area 20 by 30 km to a depth of 1.5 km.
The interior is nearly as battered as the outer rim. Impacts have churned parts of the floor, leaving it nearly as rough as the surrounding terrain. The freshest is a small, cup-shaped crater southwest of the midpoint. An infrared spectrum of pure crystalline plagioclase has been identified on the southwest floor.
The crater is named for Dutch physicist Peter Debye, who became a Nobel laureate in chemistry in 1936. The IAU formally adopted its designation in 1970.