Geological Chronicle
Lippmann is a large lunar impact crater in the southern part of the far side of the Moon, measuring 160.07 kilometers in diameter. Named for Gabriel Lippmann, a French physicist and Nobel laureate, the feature lies on the southeast margin of the Pre-Nectarian South Pole-Aitken Basin. To its northeast is the walled plain Mendel, and the crater Petzval lies to the south-southeast.
Dating to the Pre-Nectarian period, the crater has been degraded by subsequent impacts. The satellite crater Lippmann L overlies the southeastern rim, while the relatively fresh crater Lippmann Q cuts across the southwest rim. The remaining rim is worn and rounded, with a few surviving terrace-like features, and ejecta nearly blankets the western and eastern sides.
The crater floor is relatively level across its western two-thirds, though marked by several impacts, including the satellite crater Lippmann P southwest of the midpoint. A short chain of small craterlets marks the southern floor. To the north and east, the terrain is streaked with features radial to the Mare Orientale basin, and Lippmann lies southwest of the 630-kilometer-wide Mendel-Rydberg Basin.