How Does NASA Name Things on Mars? (Mars Report -2023)

NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers are exploring new terrain on Mars every day, adding thousands of names to the Red Planet over the last few years. Set in the Perseverance rover operations area at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this edition of the Mars Report features geologist Tina Seeger of Caltech explaining the process for naming Mars rocks, drill targets, and other locations as the teams explore.

This video discusses how official and unofficial names are decided by scientists who need a common language to reference while navigating Mars. For the Curiosity and Perseverance missions, scientists have been systematically dividing their maps into quadrants and giving each quadrant a theme from which to draw names, such as national parks around the world.

For more information on the naming process, visit https://go.nasa.gov/3qsNgI1.

For more information on NASA's Mars missions, visit mars.nasa.gov.

Credits: Video production, rover engineering camera images, Pathfinder mission images: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Perseverance rover’s WATSON, Curiosity rover’s Mastcam, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s CTX images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS; Perseverance rover Mastcam-Z images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS; Mars maps: USGS Astrogeology Science Center, NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona, and ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO); Ubajara National Park: R. Ourico (public domain); West Virginia: K. Thomas (public domain); Belva Lockwood: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (CC0); Victoria Crater: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Cornell/Ohio State University; NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona; NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU; Spirit and Opportunity images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell; Shenandoah and Death Valley National Parks: NPS/N. Lewis and NPS (public domain); Death Valley aerial view: NASA; California Map: USGS George I Smith; personal images courtesy of T. Seeger