Racah

Lat: 13.8°S, Long: 179.8°W, Diam: 63 km, Depth: km, Rükl: (farside)

Images

LPOD Photo Gallery Lunar Orbiter Images Apollo Images
Frame 59, a photograph made by Zond 8, shows Racah just leftward of the frame's central cross.
Research: Danny Caes

Named for Giulio Racah (1909 - August 28, 1965), an Italian-Israeli physicist and mathematician. Racah's research was mainly in the fields of quantum physics and atomic spectroscopy. He first devised a systematic general procedure for classifying the energy levels of open shell atoms, which remains to this day the accepted technique for practical calculations of atomic structure. In 1958 he was awarded the Israel Prize for lifetime contribution to physics.
Racah was among the long list of farside names approved by the IAU in 1970 and published in Menzel, 1971.
In the planning for Apollo 8, the first manned circumlunar mission (1968), this crater (which did not then have an official name) was referred to informally as"Shepard" (source: Phil Stooke's LPOD).