NASA has revealed a stunning new image of a Mars crater – and it has a secret meaning.
On Monday, the US space agency took to Instagram to share an image of a strange crater on the Red Planet.
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“The Martian crater marks the spot,” Nasa officials wrote in the caption under the image.
“You’re looking at 0° longitude on Mars—the Greenwich Observatory equivalent on the Red Planet,” the caption continued.
The Greenwich Observatory on Earth sits atop a steep hill in London that marks where our planet’s Prime Meridian line runs through.
Prime Meridian is a north-south line that defines where east meets west.
Furthermore, it is used as the “zero reference line for astronomical observations,” Nasa said.
In the image of Mars, a large crater sits within a second rocky basin, designated the “Airy Crater”.
The Airy Crater originally defined zero-longitude for Mars, but as scientists started capturing more detailed images of the planet’s surface, they needed a more precise marker.
Hence, NASA designated the smaller crater, dubbed Airy-0 (zero), as it’s Prime Meridian – as to not alter existing maps.
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The US space agency captured the image using the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Since going live a few hours ago, the photo has garnered nearly 300,000 likes.
Hundreds of Instagram users also commented under the image to express their awe.
“Not gonna lie, the photo kinda creeps me out! But very interesting indeed,” one user wrote.
“Wow! What an amazing picture,” a second person added.
“Looks like water,” a third Instagrammer noted.
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