Chao Meng-Fu is a 167 km (104 mi) diameter crater on Mercury named after the Chinese painter and calligrapher Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322).

This combined with bright radar echoes from the location of the crater leads scientists to suspect that it may shelter large quantities of ice protected against sublimation into the near-vacuum by the constant −171 °C (−276 °F) temperatures.

However, with no direct confirmation, it is always possible that the observed radar reflectivity from Chao Meng-Fu and similar craters is due to depositions of metal-rich minerals and compounds.

[citation needed] A geothermally heated ocean beneath Chao Meng-Fu crater serves as the home of an alien species in Stephen Baxter's story Cilia-of-Gold, first published in the August 1994 issue of Asimov's and reprinted in his collection Vacuum Diagrams.

Gerald Nordley's novelette Crossing Chao Meng-Fu, originally published in the December 1997 issue of Analog, depicts rock-climbers struggling to traverse the crater.