Utopia Planitia (Latin: "Nowhere Plain") is the largest recognized impact basin on Mars and in the solar system with an estimated diameter of 3300 km, and is the Martian region where the Viking 2 lander touched down and began exploring on September 3, 1976. It is located at the antipode of Argyre Planitia, centered at 49°42′N 118°00′E / 49.7°N 118.0°E / 49.7; 118.0. It is in the Casius quadrangle and the Cebrenia quadrangle of Mars.
Many rocks at Utopia Planitia appear perched, as if wind removed much of the soil at their bases. A hard surface crust is formed by solutions of minerals moving up through soil and evaporating at the surface. Some areas of the surface exhibit what is called "Scalloped topography," a surface that seems to have been carved out by an ice cream scoop. This surface is thought to have formed by the degradation of an ice-rich permafrost.
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Famous quotes containing the word utopia:
“I shall speak of ... how melancholy and utopia preclude one another. How they fertilize one another.... Of the revulsion that follows one insight and precedes the next.... Of superabundance and surfeit. Of stasis in progress. And of myself, for whom melancholy and utopia are heads and tails of the same coin.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)