Bonneville (Mars crater)
| Martian crater Bonneville | ||
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| Bonneville Crater. Overview photo by Mars Global Surveyor | ||
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| position | 14 ° 36 ′ S , 175 ° 30 ′ E | |
| diameter | 210 m | |
| depth | 14 m | |
| history | ||
| Eponym | Lake Bonneville | |
The Bonneville Crater [ ˈbɔnəvɪl - ] is an impact crater on Mars with a diameter of 200 m. It is located within the Gusev crater, which measures 150 km .
Bonneville was hit by the Spirit reconnaissance vehicle in 2004 , sending unique images from the rover to Earth. The scientists hoped that this Martian crater would be deep enough that bedrock could be found on its inner floor. However, this hope was shattered with the first pictures from inside. The crater contained nothing but the same rocks as outside the crater. So the Rover Spirit was moved further east to the Columbia Hills. The place where Spirit took up his position at the crater was called The Hole Point .
In the overview photo, the positions of the Spirit rover , its lander, the parachute, the heat shield (Heat Shield Impact), the rear heat shield (backshell) and the lane (track) are marked.
On the opposite side of Bonneville, the rover photographed the heat shield that the lander detonated after it entered the Martian atmosphere. The bright white-blue glow of the sign stood out in the otherwise completely orange-red environment.
The crater is named after Lake Bonneville , a prehistoric lake in the US state of Utah . Many craters in the vicinity of Bonneville were also named after different bodies of water. To the north of it are Vanda (≈100 m, after an ice-covered lake in the Antarctic), Baikal (~ 100 m, after Lake Baikal in Russia), Turkana (≈150 m, after Lake Turkana in the East African Rift ) and Huron (≈200 m, after Lake Huron in North America) and to the west of it Missoula (after the glacial lake Lake Missoula in the Rocky Mountains ) and Lahontan (after the prehistoric Lake Lahontan , which lay in California and Nevada), the last two were by Spirit visited.
The name of the crater has not yet been confirmed by the International Astronomical Union , so the crater does not appear in the official lists and databases.
panorama
