Geological Chronicle
Maunder sits on the far side of the Moon just beyond the western limb, brought into sight only during favorable librations. Located at the northern end of Mare Orientale within the Montes Rook mountain ring, it ranks as the largest crater on Mare Orientale, positioned northwest of Kopff and north of Hohmann.
On the lunar geologic timescale, Maunder is a crater of Eratosthenian age with a sharp rim that has not been significantly eroded. Its inner walls are terraced and slump to a rough but level floor, where infrared observations identified pure crystalline plagioclase along the north and northwest walls and northwestern ejecta.
At the midpoint of Maunder rises a double central peak, with the northeastern peak being the larger of the two. Spectral data from the central peak fit a noritic gabbro mineralogy originating from a depth of 5.5 to 8.4 km, while secondary impacts mark the surface to the south.
The International Astronomical Union approved the name Maunder in 1970. The crater honors Irish astronomer Annie Maunder and her husband, Edward Walter Maunder, who documented the period of colder climate from 1645 to 1715 known as the Maunder Minimum.