Meridiani Planum

From Wikinfo

Meridiani Planum is a plain located 2 degrees south of Mars' equator, in the westernmost portion of Sinus Meridiani. It hosts a rare occurrence of gray crystalline hematite. On Earth, hematite is often formed in hot springs or in standing pools of water; therefore, many scientists believe that the hematite at Meridiani Planum may be indicative of ancient hot springs or that the environment contained liquid water. The hematite is part of a layered sedimentary rock formation approximately 200 meters thick. Other features of Meridiani Planum include volcanic basalt and impact craters.

Meridiani Planum was the target landing site for the second of NASA's two Mars Exploration Rovers, named Opportunity. It was also the target landing site for Mars Surveyor 2001, which was cancelled after the failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander missions.

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Meridiani_Planum" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridiani_Planum, used under the GNU Free Documentation License