Astrogeology Science Center

The name Sinai Fossae has been approved for the Martian fossae located at 14.0S, 281.0E. For more information, see the gazetteer page for Sinai Fossae and the map of MC-18 in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 23 January 2012 | 7:35 am

The IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature has approved names for three terrae (Garotman, Tollan, and Yalaing Terrae) and two regiones (Concordia and Hetpet Regiones) on Titan. For details, see the list of Titan feature names in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 5 January 2012 | 9:26 am

The name Havel Vallis has been approved for the Martian vallis located at 1.0N, 302.5E. For more information, see the web page for Havel Vallis and the map of MC-10 in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 3 January 2012 | 8:33 am

The Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature has approved names for seven craters, two fossae, one tholus, one terra, one planitia, and two rupēs on Vesta. For details, see the list of Vesta feature names and the image of Vesta in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. Coordinates for these names are in a system used by the Dawn Team.

Posted on 27 December 2011 | 9:10 am

The names Hano and Momoy have been approved for craters on Titan. For more information, see the Titan page in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 23 December 2011 | 9:54 am

The names of six montes (Angmar, Dolmed, Echoriath, Gram, Merlock, and Rerir Montes) and four undae (Boreas, Eurus, Notus, and Zephyrus Undae) have been approved for Titan. For details, see the list of Titan feature names in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 5 December 2011 | 9:01 am

The name Majuro has been approved for the Martian crater located at 33.3S, 84.3E. For more information, see the database information and the map of MC-28 in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 28 November 2011 | 10:52 am

The names of fourteen craters and one tholus have been approved for Vesta. For details, see the list of Vesta feature names in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. Coordinates for these names are in a system used by the Dawn Team.

Posted on 3 October 2011 | 7:36 am

The names Corozal, Palikir, Raga, and Tivat have been approved for use on Mars. For more information, see the maps of Mars in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 29 September 2011 | 3:12 pm

The name Lauriacum has been approved for the small crater that defines zero degrees longitude on asteroid (21) Lutetia. For more information, see the Lutetia page in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 2 September 2011 | 9:40 am

The Mars portion of the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature now defaults to a new set of coordinates; all of the Martian features now match the Mars Digital Image Mosaic (MDIM) 2.1 control network.

In late 2010, the coordinates of the named craters in the Martian portion of the nomenclature database were updated from values from the MDIM 2.0 control network to values in the MDIM 2.1 control network. In the spring of 2011, the remaining Martian features (i.e., all the named features that are not craters) were also updated to MDIM 2.1. Since the MDIM 2.1 network was tied to local Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) generated from Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) data, this implies the features now match MOLA data products and other products in that reference frame. The GIS download that contains all of the features in the MDIM 2.0 control network is still retained in the gazetteer, but is now considered archival and will not be updated with new names or changes to approved names.

The extents and sizes of the named features were also updated, and vectors describing feature boundaries were drawn; these data are approximate and are intended solely to give the user sufficient information to identify named features and their rough extents.

This work was accomplished using ArcMap version 9.3.1 and the Mars Digital Image Mosaic 2.1. Some features are not resolved well in the 2.1 mosaic; for these cases, feature coordinates were derived from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) Day IR 100m global mosaic. We would like to thank Stuart Robbins (University of Colorado, Boulder) for sharing a portion of his global crater database, which provided a valuable and time-saving starting point for the crater portion of this work.

Posted on 11 August 2011 | 1:37 pm

Names for two craters (Öpik and Shklovsky), one planitia (Lagado Planitia), and one regio (Laputa Regio) have been approved for use on Phobos. For more information, see the Phobos page and the map of Phobos in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 28 July 2011 | 8:53 am

The names Lipany, Oenotria Plana, and Zarqa Valles have been approved for use on Mars. The name Oenotria Scopulus has been changed to the plural form, Oenotria Scopuli, to accomodate the addition of several scarps to this feature. For more information, see the maps of MC-13 and MC-21 in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 14 June 2011 | 8:29 am

The name Dogana has been approved for the Martian crater located at 10.0S, 306.35E. For more information, see the database information and the map of MC-18 in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 19 April 2011 | 8:34 am

Three new lacus names (Cardiel Lacus, Freeman Lacus, and Towada Lacus) have been approved for use on Titan. For more information, see the Titan page and the map of the north polar region of Titan in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

Posted on 7 April 2011 | 9:03 am