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Vastitas Borealis (Latin for 'northern waste') [1] is the largest lowland region of Mars. It is in the northerly latitudes of the planet and encircles the northern polar region . [ 2 ] Vastitas Borealis is often simply referred to as the northern plains , northern lowlands or the North polar erg [ 3 ] of Mars.
The North Polar Basin, more commonly known as the Borealis Basin, is a large basin in the northern hemisphere of Mars that covers 40% of the planet. [1] [2] Some scientists have postulated that the basin formed during the impact of a single, large body roughly 2% of the mass of Mars, having a diameter of about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) early in the history of Mars, around 4.5 billion years ago.
The Phoenix lander landed on Vastitas Borealis within the Mare Boreum quadrangle at 68.218830° N and 234.250778° E on May 25, 2008. [8] The probe collected and analyzed soil samples in an effort to detect water and determine how hospitable the planet might once have been for life to grow.
The maps below were produced by the Mars Global Surveyor ' s Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter; redder colors indicate higher elevations.The maps of the equatorial quadrangles use a Mercator projection, while those of the mid-latitude quadrangles use a Lambert conformal conic projection, and the maps of the polar quadrangles use a polar stereographic projection.
The northern and western areas of the quadrangle lie in the northern lowland plains of Mars and cover portions of Amazonis Planitia (in the south), Arcadia Planitia (west central) and Vastitas Borealis (in the north). The large crater Milankovič (118.4 km in diameter) is located in the north central portion of the quadrangle at 54.7° N, 213.3 ...
The aurora borealis was visible as far south as Florida on Thursday. Photos show the sky lit up in red and purple, even in some brightly-lit areas like New York City and Chicago .
Planum Boreum (Latin: "the northern plain") is the northern polar plain on Mars.It extends northward from roughly 80°N and is centered at Surrounding the high polar plain is a flat and featureless lowland plain called Vastitas Borealis which extends for approximately 1500 kilometers southwards, dominating the northern hemisphere.
An 1877 map of Mars by Giovanni Schiaparelli. North is at the top of this map. In most maps of Mars drawn before space exploration the convention among astronomers was to put south at the top because the telescopic image of a planet is inverted. The first detailed observations of Mars were from ground-based telescopes.