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**Names of Mars features**
	This article will explain how Martian features are named especially in the Arabia region of Mars. This colored map of Mars runs from 0 to 360 degrees West. Colors indicate elevation with blue being the lowest and white being the highest. Major features are labeled. Image credit: MOLA Science Team/ GSFC/NASA Many of the features of Mars are old names taken from the maps of Schiaparelli. Olympus Mons is the highest volcano on Mars and in the Solar System. Hellas is the deepest impact crater on Mars and in the Solar System. Hellas means Greece. Mons refers to an isolated mountain.
Syrtis Major is the oldest known feature of Mars. In classic times, Syrtis Major referred to a gulf on the coast of Libya that was also known in ancient times as the gulf of Cyrene. Note "Simon of Cyrene" in the New Testment was from this area.	The biggest canyon on Mars and in the solar System is Valles Marineris; it is about as long as the contential United States and was named after the Mariner missions to Mars. Elysium Mons is another giant volcano. In mythology, Elysium was a dwelling place of good people when they died. Argyra is another deep impact crater.
	This image was produced at MalinSpace Sciences from images taken with the Mars Global Surveyor. As is common with many maps of Mars, zero longitude is in the very center. The colorful map above and to the left shows elevations which may or may not correspond to what is actually seen.
Large craters, like those of the Moon, are named for deceased scientists or other famous people who helped study Mars. Some craters get their names from villages of less than 20,000 population. Dutch astronomer-mathematician, Christian Huygens drew the first map of Mars. He was the first to draw a dark feature, now called Syrtis Major. A large crater near Syrtis Major is named after him. After much debate, the naming of Martian features largely followed the ideas of Giovanni Schiapelli, an Italian astronomer who started to draw Mars in 1877. His maps included linear features called canale. However, he was not the first to see them. Others who observed them earilier were F. Kaiser, N. Lockyer, N. Green, and Father Pierre Secchi. All of these men have craters named after them. The word canali began with Father Secchi in 1869. Schiaparelli never claimed or denied that his canali were artificial. Percival Lowel popularized the notion that canales proved the exiostence of technically advanced beings. A large crater in the Southern hemisphere is named in honor of Lowel. Schiaparelli also discovered that metror showers travel in cometary orbits. A large crater in the middle of Arabia is named after Giovanni Cassini who discovered the rotation of Mars to be almost the same as the Earth's. His value of 24 hours and 40 minutes is only about 2.5 minutes longer than what is accepted today. Cassini was also the first to notice a polar ice cap. Cassini also made major discoveries with other solar system bodies. The Cassini satellite now orbiting Saturn was named in honor of this man. The Cassini Division between major rings of Saturn is named after Cassini who discovered it in 1675. He also correctly decided that the rings were not solid, but were made up of millions of tiny bodies. Cassini's map of the Moon was the best of his day.
	Large channels such as Ares, Al-Quahira, Ma'adim, and Kasei are ancient names of Mars from different cultures.
	In and near the Oxia Palus region of Mars are craters named after famous scientists who unraveled the details of radiation and the structure of atoms. Sklodowska, the most north of the group is named for Marie Sklodowska, the wife of Pierre Curie. Pierre is noted for discovering the Curie Point, the point above which a substance loses its magnetism. Together, the Curies isolated the element radium. Radium was then used by others like Sir Ernest Rutherford to study the atomic nucleus. Together with Henri Becquerel, the Curies were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their work on radioactivity. Later, Marie Curie won a 2nd Nobel Prize in Chemistry. That made her the only person at the time to have won a Nobel Prize in both physics and chemistry. A little known fact is that their daughter Irene won a Noble Prize in Chemistry. And people say girls can't do science! Even though Marie Curie was arguably one of the brightest people of her age, she was denied membership in the Academy of Sciences because she was a woman. Today a north to south strip of craters honor Sklodowska, Currie, Becquerel, and Rutherford.
The myth of Scylla and Charybdis is famous. It comes from the journeys of Jason and Odysseus, described in ancient literature. Scylla was 6-headed monster; Charybdis was a giant whirlpool. Scylla started out as a sea nymph. However, Amphitrite turned her into a sea monster because of Scylla's affair with Amphitrite's husband. Scopulus is used to name a cliff or scapt that has an irregular appearance.
This mosaic at the right was assembled from Wide Angle red images (primarily those acquired in May-June 1999) from the Mars Orbiter Camera (MGS) by Malin Space Science Systems. It shows the Arabia Quadrangle. For mapping purposes, the surface of Mars was divided into 30 sections, called Quandrangles.
The same location is displayed at the right, but it was produced by the U. S. Geological Survey with Viking images.
Craters are named after scientists of many nationalities: Henry, Pasteur, Arago, Janssen--French Luzin--Russian Gill, Rutherford--British Cassin, Schiaparellii, Maggini--Italian Huygens--Dutch Sklodowska--Polish	A variety of scientists are honored with crater names on Mars: Pasteur--chemist Tikhonvavov--rocket scientist Luzin--mathematician Arago, Janssen, Cassini--astronomers Becquerel, Rutherford--physicists Teisserenc de Bort-- meteorologist
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