Geological Chronicle
Laue is an 89.17-kilometer-wide impact crater dating to the Imbrian period on the lunar geologic timescale. It lies across the south-southwestern rim and interior floor of the huge walled plain Lorentz, located on the Moon's far side just beyond the west-northwestern limb. Under conditions of favorable libration and illumination from the Sun, the feature can be viewed at a very oblique angle from Earth.
The formation is moderately worn, with several small craters along the rim, including a small crater intruding slightly into the northeastern rim and a cup-shaped crater along the east-southeastern inner wall. The interior wall is generally narrower along the northern side than elsewhere, possibly reflecting the terrain in which the crater formed. On the northeastern rim, infrared observations have identified the spectrum of pure crystalline plagioclase.
Across the interior floor, a pair of low central ridges rises just south of the midpoint, accompanied by a small cup-shaped crater to the north-northwest of center. The surrounding floor is relatively level and marked by several smaller craters. In 1970, the International Astronomical Union formally named the crater for Nobel Prize-winning German physicist Max von Laue, replacing its prior designation as Crater 181.