Large objects on the Martian surface receive official names, and scientists on different missions do not always give serious names for rocks and hills.
On February 18, 2021, a car-sized rover landed on the surface of Mars to begin searching for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. Since then, the landing site of the Perseverance rover has been named Octavia Butler, in honor of the famous American science fiction writer. NASA scientists name not only massive objects like craters, but even the smallest rocks on Mars. How come, writes Gizmodo.
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Since NASA began sending rovers to Mars, the space agency has developed a tradition of naming many features of the Martian landscape. You can find names such as Indiana Jones, Casper, Scooby-Doo on the Mars chart, but there are more official names. For example, the Jezero crater is named after a city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and means “lake”. In principle, everything makes sense, because scientists believe that once in this crater on Mars there was a large lake of liquid water. “Endurance” can also be found among the more formal names for the Martian terrain. This was the name of the ship on which Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition was launched. As it turns out, NASA has its own way of assigning names to certain objects on Mars.
NASA scientists have already named many hills and craters on Mars, as well as many rocks and patches of surface. Some names have been given to the local landscape features that NASA rovers encounter on their way.
The scientists say they named almost everything they encountered so that the rovers could have a better idea of what they discovered. So you can point to a specific object and immediately find it on the map.
More than 2,000 names of different objects on the surface of Mars given by NASA scientists have been approved by the International Astronomical Union and are therefore considered official. There are certain rules set by the Union regarding such names. For example, craters over 60 km in diameter are named after famous scientists or science fiction writers, while smaller craters are named after cities with a population of less than 100,000. Currently being explored by the Perseverance rover, Jezero Crater contains another impact crater, Belva, and is named after a city in West Virginia, USA.
In addition to official names, NASA scientists also give unofficial nicknames for some objects on Mars, including ordinary rocks. For example, scientists on the InSight mission named the rock that flew away during the lander’s descent to Mars, the Rolling Stones, after the famous rock band.
Also, scientists on different missions sometimes choose a specific theme for a specific area on Mars and give names to landscape features associated with that topic. For example, the Curiosity rover is currently exploring an area on Earth similar to the Serra Pacaraima mountain range found in Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana (South America). Therefore, scientists here call different objects with nicknames associated with this continent.
Focus He has already written that artificial intelligence shows what human colonies on Mars would look like, based on scientists’ predictions.
Moreover Focus He wrote that according to scientists, it will help people on Mars survive by artificial photosynthesis.
And in this stunning new image of the Red Planet, you can see that, as I wrote earlier, Mars may actually have different colors. Focus.
Source: Focus
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