Vitello (crater)

Vitello is a lunar crater that lies along the southern edge of the small Mare Humorum, in the southwest part of the Moon's near side. It lies just to the east of the lava-flooded crater Lee. To the northeast along the edge of the lunar mare is the Rupes Kelvin, an irregular fault line.

This crater has a low, roughly circular rim with a sharp edge. The interior floor is irregular, rugged and hilly, with a smaller, concentric crater offset to the east of the midpoint. A low ridge projects out from the northwest rim into the mare.

Vitello was once believed to be a caldera rather than an impact crater. In To A Rocky Moon, lunar geologist Don E. Wilhelms summarized: It "is a Saari-Shorthill infrared hotspot, is fractured, and is blanketed and surrounded by a dark deposit. If there is a caldera on the moon, this ought to be it." However, Lunar Orbiter 5 acquired high-resolution images of the interior and geologists noted that the fractures were filled with boulders which caused the infrared anomaly, and so volcanic heat was not escaping from Vitello. Wilhelms concluded "...if it is a caldera, its activity expired long ago."