Looks like Mars, sounds like the Arctic

If there are any native Martians on Mars, they may be shocked to learn that U.S. scientists are renaming places on their planet as fast as they can, in the same way that explorers and every wave of newcomers gave their own foreign place names to the Eastern Arctic.

No one from Earth has visited Mars (at least, as far as we know for sure.)

But a little bit of Canada’s North has been transported to Mars as names for places, people and events on Earth are transported to locations on the Red Planet.

Borrowed place names for Martian craters include Inuvik, Nain, Nutak and Thule.

The names of vessels used in past polar exploration are also now on Mars.

That’s because NASA scientists involved with the Mars Rover missions decided to devise new naming practices to deal with all the new features found by the two Rovers touring the planet.

Craters near Spirit’s landing site are now named after lakes on Earth, such as Lake Baikal in Siberia, while craters near Opportunity’s landing site are named after famous ships of exploration.

“Fram Crater” is named after the ship used by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen to travel the Northwest Passage 101 years ago. “Endurance Crater” recalls the ill-fated expedition of Ernest Shackleton to Antarctica.

The newly-named “Diamond Jenness” outcrop in the Endurance Crater remembers Diamond Jenness, the late explorer, anthropologist and author of the classic 1928 book The People of the Twilight on the Inuit of the Coronation Gulf.

In July, the Opportunity Rover found rock formations that are now being called “blueberries.” Soil textures have names similar to the flavours of ice cream, such as “mudpie” and “chocolate chip.”

However, NASA’s most recent names from the Rovers’ explorations are for convenience only, and they haven’t been internationally accepted, because the International Astronomical Union — not NASA — is responsible for naming land features on planets and moons.

According to the IAU, craters less than 100 km should be named for towns on Earth with fewer than 100,000 people. Craters wider than 100 km are to be named after planetary scientists.

But some of the more recently-named features are named after American heroes and place names, like “Route 66,” or even animals, including “Serpent” and “Shark Tooth.”

If the names aren’t permanent, then why do it? A NASA scientist said “whenever explorers go somewhere, we always want to name things… it allows one to leave their mark on the surface of another planet.”