Craters on Mars
Written by Fraser Cain
Mars crater with ice. Image credit: ESA
Like most of the planets and moons in the Solar System, the planet Mars is covered with impact craters. In fact, there are hundreds of thousands of craters on the surface of Mars, including hundreds of named craters. There are more than 43,000 known craters larger than 5 k across.
Craters on Mars are named after famous scientists or science fiction authors; the craters smaller than 60 km across are named after towns on Earth. The largest crater on Mars is the Hellas Basin; it measures 2,100 km across and gets as deep as 9 km down. It's surrounded by a ring of material that stretches out 4,000 km from the center of the basin.
Mars has a lower mass than Earth, and so it has a lower ability to pull in objects; however, Mars is closer to the asteroid belt than Earth, and has a better chance of being hit by objects from that region. Still, Mars has less craters on its surface than the Moon. One major reason is the fact that Mars has a think atmosphere that prevent the smallest meteors from reaching the surface. With no atmosphere, everything reaches the surface of the Moon.
The large number of craters on Mars indicates that the surface of Mars is ancient, and has probably remained unchanged for billions of year. During the Noachian epoch, 3.8-3.5 billion years ago, many of the largest craters on Mars were formed. The craters on Mars have various amounts of weather. Some are worn down by wind and possibly water, while others look freshly formed.
We have written many articles about craters on Mars. Here's a recent story with links to crazy mars craters, and here's an article about debris filled craters on Mars.
Want more information on Mars? Here's a link to NASA's Mars Exploration Program, and here's NASA's World Book on Mars.
We have recorded several podcasts just about Mars. Including Episode 52: Mars and Episode 92: Missions to Mars, Part 1.
Filed under: Astronomy
