What is "paschen"

Paschen is a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon. The relatively large satellite crater Paschen M partly overlies the southern rim of Paschen, and they nearly form a merged pair with only a section of irregular terrain along their common border. The smaller but well-formed crater Paschen S lies across the southwestern rim of Paschen. As a result, most of the southern rim of Paschen is now gone.

The remainder of the rim is not in much better condition. It is worn and eroded, with multiple small craterlets along the edge and inner wall. Most of the rim structure has been worn away by subsequent impacts and deposits of ejecta, and now forms a rounded dip into the curving interior. A small chain of craters cuts across the rim and inner wall to the west-northwest. There are several small craterlets in the southeastern part of the floor.

Paschen lies to the east of the larger walled plain Galois, and to the southwest of the huge Hertzsprung. About half a crater diameter to the northeast of Paschen is Wan-Hoo. Farther to the north-northwest lies Sechenov.

Paschen may refer to:

• Friedrich Paschen (1865–1947), German physicist
  • Paschen (crater), a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon
  • Paschen-Back effect, the splitting of atomic energy levels in the presence of a strong magnetic field
  • Paschen series, a Hydrogen spectral series in the infrared band
  • Paschen's law, an equation that gives the breakdown voltage, that is the voltage necessary to start a discharge or electric arc, between two electrodes in a gas as a function of pressure and gap length