Utopia Planitia

Utopia Planitia is a greater depth level on the planet Mars and part of the northern hemisphere lowlands.

Overview

The center of the Utopia Plains is 49.7 ° north latitude and 118 ° east longitude. It extends mostly to the east and west; their greatest diameter is 3200 kilometers. South-east it borders on Elysium Planitia. The name Utopia - Greek Nowhereland - was earlier taken over in 1973 by a classic Albedomerkmal only from Earth explorable Martian surface and refers to the novel by Thomas More.

On September 3, 1976 landed in Utopia Planitia the lander spacecraft Viking 2 west of the eastern crater Mie - the most important impact crater in Utopia - and delivered to 1980 photos and scientific data from the Martian surface.

Formation

It is believed to be quite likely that the low level Utopia Planitia is also an impact crater itself. Before about 4.2 billion years ago, Mars was hit by a number of large asteroids with diameters between 180 km and 460 km (for comparison: the probably responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago asteroid had a diameter of only about 10 km away and has in the Gulf of Mexico on the outskirts of the Yucatan Peninsula behind the 180 km by measuring Chicxulub crater ).

Reception in Entertainment

In the television series " Star Trek " are there ( on the surface and in orbit ) the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, a large accumulation of space stations, shipyards and maintenance facilities of the United Federation of Planets, in, inter alia, the ships USS Enterprise ran NCC -1701 -D and USS Voyager from the stack.