Beer is a crater lying situated within the

Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle The Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle is also referred to as MC-19 (Mars Chart-19) ...

(MC-19) region of the planet

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 ...

, named in honor of the German astronomer,

Wilhelm Beer Wilhelm Wolff Beer (4 January 1797 – 27 March 1850) was a banker and astronomer from Berlin, Prussia, and the brother of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Astronomy Beer's fame derives from his hobby, astronomy. He built a private observatory with a ...

. It is located at 14.4°S 351.8°E . Beer and collaborator

Johann Heinrich Mädler Johann, typically a male given name, is the German form of ''Iohannes'', which is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Iōánnēs'' (), itself derived from Hebrew name ''Yochanan'' () in turn from its extended form (), meaning "Yahweh is Gracious" ...

produced the first reasonably good maps of Mars in the early 1830s. When doing so, they selected a particular feature for 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 their charts. Their choice was strengthened when

Giovanni Schiaparelli Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli ( , also , ; 14 March 1835 – 4 July 1910) was an Italian astronomer and science historian. Biography He studied at the University of Turin, graduating in 1854, and later did research at Berlin Observatory, ...

used the same location in 1877 for his more famous maps of Mars. The feature was later called Sinus Meridiani ("Middle Bay"), but following the landing of the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

probe MER-B Opportunity in 2004 it is perhaps better known as

Meridiani Planum The Meridiani Planum (alternately Meridiani plain, Meridiani plains, Terra Meridiani, or Terra Meridiani plains) is either a large plain straddling the equator of Mars and covered with a vast number of spherules containing a lot of iron oxide or ...

. Currently the Martian prime meridian is the crater

Airy-0 Airy-0 is a crater inside the larger Airy Crater on Mars, whose location defined the position of the prime meridian of that planet. It is about 0.5 km (0.3 mile) across and lies within the dark region Sinus Meridiani, one of the early a ...

. Beer lies in the southwest of Meridiani Planum, about 8° from the prime meridian and about 10° west from the crater Mädler. Schiaparelli is also in the region. Mapbeer.jpg, Map showing the location of Beer Crater and other, nearby features

References

External links

The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery, Chapter 4
Impact craters on Mars Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle {{crater-stub

See also

References

External links