This is a list of craters on Mars. Impact cratersonMars larger than 1 km (0.62 mi) exist by the hundreds of thousands, but only about one thousand of them have names.[1] Names are assigned by the International Astronomical Union after petitioning by relevant scientists, and in general, only craters that have a significant research interest are given names. Martian craters are named after famous scientists and science fiction authors, or if less than 60 km (37 mi) in diameter, after towns on Earth. Craters cannot be named for living people, and names for small craters are rarely intended to commemorate a specific town.[2] Latitude and longitude are given as planetographic coordinates with west longitude.
The catalog is divided into three partial lists:
Names are grouped into tables for each letter of the alphabet, containing the crater's name (linked if article exists), coordinates, diameter in kilometers, year of official name adoption (approval), the eponym ("named after") and a direct reference to the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.[1]
As of 2017, Martian craters account for 21% of all 5,211 named craters in the Solar System. Apart from the Moon, no other body has as many named craters as Mars. Other, non-planetary bodies with numerous named craters include Callisto (141), Ganymede (131), Rhea (128), Vesta (90), Ceres (90), Dione (73), Iapetus (58), Enceladus (53), Tethys (50) and Europa (41). For a full list, see List of craters in the Solar System. The total number of craters on Mars greater than 1 kilometre in diameter is approximately 385,000, with 21% of those (~85,000) being over 3 kilometers in diameter.[3] The number of craters on Mars over 25 metres in diameter is suggested to be approximately 90 million.[4]
Some of the largest craters on Mars remain unnamed. Diameters differ depending on source data. The largest confirmed impact basins on Mars are Utopia (buried, estimated diameter 3,300 km) Hellas (2,300 km), Argyre ( 1,800 km) and Isidis (1,500 km).
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