Geological Chronicle
Michelson spans 123.14 kilometers in diameter on the far side of the Moon, situated along the northeastern outer rim of the giant walled plain Hertzsprung and to the southwest of the crater Kolhörster. Multiple impacts along the rim edge and interior have heavily eroded the formation, leaving its roughly circular rim relatively uneven.
Small craters lie across the interior floor, including impacts along the northern, western, and southeastern edges. On the southwest floor, spectral observations identified the infrared signature of pure crystalline plagioclase.
To the southeast of the outer rim lies Catena Michelson, a crater chain radial to the Mare Orientale impact basin that passes near the outer rim of the crater Grachev. The feature is named for Albert Abraham Michelson, a German-American physicist and Nobel laureate.