Airy-0 is a crater inside the larger Airy Crater on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

, whose location defined the position of the

prime meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great ...

of that planet. It is about 0.5 km (0.3 mile) across and lies within the dark region

Sinus Meridiani Sinus Meridiani (Latin ''Sinus meridiani'', "Meridian Bay") is an albedo feature on Mars stretching east-west just south of the planet's equator. It was named by the French astronomer Camille Flammarion in the late 1870s. In 1979-2001, the vicin ...

, one of the early

albedo feature An albedo feature is a large area on the surface of a planet (or other Solar System body) which shows a contrast in brightness or darkness (albedo) with adjacent areas. Historically, albedo features were the first (and usually only) features to b ...

s to be identified on Mars. The IAU Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements has now recommended setting the longitude of the Viking 1 lander (47.95137° west) as the standard. This definition maintains the position of the center of Airy-0 at 0° longitude, within the tolerance of current cartographic uncertainties.

Merton Davies Merton E. Davies (September 13, 1917 – April 17, 2001) was a pioneer of America's space program, first in earth reconnaissance and later in planetary exploration and mapping. He graduated from Stanford University in 1938 and worked for the Doug ...

tied this crater into an extensive geodetic control network of the planet Mars based on

Mariner 9 Mariner 9 (Mariner Mars '71 / Mariner-I) was a robotic spacecraft that contributed greatly to the exploration of Mars and was part of the NASA Mariner program. Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971 from LC-36B at Cape Canaveral A ...

and earlier photographs. The Mariner 9 Geodesy/Cartography Group proposed that the prime meridian of Mars be defined by the center of Airy-0, which was selected by

Harold Masursky Harold (Hal) Masursky (December 23, 1922* – August 24, 1990) was an American astrogeologist. After leaving Yale University without defending his dissertation, he started his career in the early 1950s as a field geologist in Wyoming and Colo ...

, Gerard de Vaucouleurs, and Merton Davies at a Group meeting on 14 August 1972. It was named in honor of the British

Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The post ...

Sir

George Biddell Airy Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the E ...

(1801–1892), who in 1850 built the transit circle telescope at

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

. The location of that telescope was subsequently chosen to define the location of Earth's prime meridian. Meridianicropped

References

External links

View of Airy-0 at Google Mars

The Martian Prime Meridian

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Airy-0 Impact craters on Mars Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle Prime meridians Sinus Sabaeus quadrangle