Molière is an impact crater

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...

 on the planet Mercury

Mercury (planet)

Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...

, 132 kilometers in diameter. It is located at 15.6°N, 16.9°W, south of the crater Rodin

Rodin (crater)

Rodin is an impact crater on the planet Mercury, 229 kilometers in diameter. It is located at 21.1°N, 18.2°W, north of the craters Abu Nuwas and Moliere, and east of the crater Ts'ai Wen-chi. Inside Rodin are two craterlets, one to the east of the center and one to the north. The rim is even and...

, southeast of the crater Abu Nuwas

Abu Nuwas (crater)

Abu Nuwas is an impact crater on the planet Mercury, 116 kilometers in diameter. It is located at 17.4°N, 20.4°W. It is named after the Arab poet Abu Nuwas, and its name was approved by the International Astronomical Union in 1976...

, and northeast of the crater Asvaghosa

Asvaghosa (crater)

Aśvaghosa is an impact crater on Mercury, 90 kilometers in diameter. It is located at 10.4°, 21°W, south of the crater Abu Nuwas and southwest of the crater Molière. It is a nearly circular formation, and its rim remains intact, except where it is broken at its southern side, and at its northern...

. The nearly circular rim of the crater is cut off into a flat edge on its southern and southwestern ends, and on its eastern side the rim is indented by a smaller crater. The crater is named for the 17th century French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 dramatist and satirist Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

. The name was approved by the International Astronomical Union

International Astronomical Union

The International Astronomical Union IAU is a collection of professional astronomers, at the Ph.D. level and beyond, active in professional research and education in astronomy...

in 1976.