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(Freely adapted from Wikipedia)
Catena Abulfeda is a chain of craters on the Moon that runs between the southern rim of the crater Abulfeda and the north rim of Almanon, then continues for a length of 210 kilometers across the Rupes Altai.
Abulfeda is a lunar impact crater (dia. 62 Km, dep. 3.1 Km) located in the central highlands of the Moon. The crater was named for 14th century Syrian-born historian Ismael Abul-fida.
Both the south and northeast sides of the crater rim are overlain by multiple small craterlets. The inner wall is noticeably wider in the east, and shallow and worn to the north. The crater lacks a central rise at the midpoint, which may have been buried. The inner sides appear to have been somewhat smoothed down, most likely as a result of minor bombardment and seismic shaking from other impacts in the vicinity.
Descartes is a heavily worn lunar crater that is located in the rugged south-central highlands of the Moon. To the southwest is the crater Abulfeda. The rim of Descartes survives only in stretches, and is completely missing in the north. The crater Descartes A lies across the southwest rim. The interior floor contains several curved ridges. These are concentric with the surviving outer walls to the northwest and southeast. A section of the outer rim of Descartes is covered by a region that has a higher albedo than the surrounding surface. Measurements by the Clementine spacecraft showed that this patch is actually a magnetic anomaly—the strongest on the near side of the Moon. This magnetic field may be deflecting particles from the solar wind, and thus preventing the underlying surface from growing darker because of space weathering.
About 50 kilometers to the north of this crater was the landing site of Apollo 16. The uneven region about the landing area is sometimes called the Descartes Highlands or the Descartes Mountains.
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