Jezero (crater)

Jezero
First full-color image transmitted by Perseverance from Jezero
PlanetMars
Coordinates18°23′N 77°35′E / 18.38°N 77.58°E / 18.38; 77.58
QuadrangleSyrtis Major
Diameter45 km (28 mi)[1]
EponymJezero, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Jezero on the edge of the Isidis basin

Jezero[a] (ICAO: JZRO) is a crater on Mars in the Syrtis Major quadrangle,[3] about 45.0 km (28.0 mi) in diameter. Thought to have once been flooded with water, the crater contains a fan-delta deposit rich in clays.[4] The lake in the crater was present when valley networks were forming on Mars. Besides having a delta, the crater shows point bars and inverted channels. From a study of the delta and channels, it was concluded that the lake inside the crater probably formed during a period in which there was continual surface runoff.[5]

In 2007, following the discovery of its ancient lake, the crater was named after Jezero, Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of several eponymous towns in the country.[6][7] In some Slavic languages, the word jezero[b] means 'lake'.[8]

In November 2018, it was announced that Jezero had been chosen as the landing site for the rover Perseverance as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission.[9][10][11] In November 2020, evidence of boulder falls was found on the slopes of the delta deposits that the rover is planned to explore, on the wall of Jezero itself as well as on the wall of Dacono,[12] a small crater 2 km (1.2 mi) in diameter on the floor of Jezero.[13] Perseverance successfully landed in the crater on 18 February 2021.[14] On 5 March 2021, NASA named the landing site of the rover Octavia E. Butler Landing.[15]

  1. ^ "Perseverance Rover's Landing Site: Jezero Crater". Mars 2020 Mission Perseverance Rover. NASA. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
  2. ^ Urrutia, Doris Elin (18 February 2021). "How to pronounce 'Jezero crater.' (Yes, you may be doing it wrong.)". Space.com. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  3. ^ Wray, James (6 June 2008). "Channel into Jezero Crater Delta". NASA. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  4. ^ Muir, Hazel. "Prime landing sites chosen for biggest Martian rover". Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  5. ^ Goudge, T.; et al. (2017). Stratigraphy and Evolution of Delta Channel Deposits, Jezero Crater Mars (PDF). Lunar and Planetary Science 48 (2017). 1195.pdf.
  6. ^ "NASA Mars Mission Connects With Bosnian Town". jpl.nasa.gov. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 23 September 2019. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  7. ^ "Planetary Names: Crater, craters: Jezero on Mars". planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  8. ^ a b Trubachyov, Oleg Nikolayevich, ed. (1979). Etimologicheskiy slovar' slavyanskikh yazykov Этимологический словарь славянских языков [Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages] (in Russian). Vol. 6. Moscow: Nauka. pp. 33–34.
  9. ^ Chang, Kenneth (28 July 2020). "How NASA Found the Ideal Hole on Mars to Land In – Jezero crater. the destination of the Perseverance rover, is a promising place to look for evidence of extinct Martian life". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  10. ^ Chang, Kenneth (19 November 2018). "NASA Mars 2020 Rover Gets a Landing Site: A Crater That Contained a Lake – The rover will search the Jezero Crater and delta for the chemical building blocks of life and other signs of past microbes". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
  11. ^ Wall, Mike (19 November 2018). "Jezero Crater or Bust! NASA Picks Landing Site for Mars 2020 Rover". Space.com. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  12. ^ "Dacono". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  13. ^ Sinha, R.K.; et al. (2020). "Boulder fall activity in the Jezero Crater, Mars" (PDF). Geophysical Research Letters. 47 (23): e90362. Bibcode:2020GeoRL..4790362S. doi:10.1029/2020GL090362. S2CID 228859524.
  14. ^ Billings, Lee. "Perseverance Has Landed! Mars Rover Begins a New Era of Exploration". Scientific American. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  15. ^ Staff (5 March 2021). "Welcome to 'Octavia E. Butler Landing'". NASA. Retrieved 5 March 2021.


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