Hesperia Planum

Hesperia Planum is a broad lava plain in the southern highlands of the planet Mars. The plain is notable for its moderate number of impact craters and abundant wrinkle ridges. It is also the location of the ancient volcano Tyrrhena Mons (Tyrrhena Patera). The Hesperian time period on Mars is named after Hesperia Planum.

Most place names on Mars are derived from sources in the Bible or classical antiquity. is a Greco-Latin poetic term for "lands to the west," which to the ancient Greeks and Romans meant Italy, while Spain was referred as Hesperia Ultima .Planum (pl. plana) is Latin for plateau or high plain. It is a descriptor term used in planetary geology for a relatively smooth, elevated terrain on another planet or moon.

The Hesperia region of Mars was named by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877 for an intermediate-toned albedo feature centered at lat. 20°S, long. 240°W between two darker regions. Believing the dark areas were bodies of water, Schiaparelli interpreted Hesperia to be a floodplain or marsh bridging two adjacent seas, the Mare Tyrrhenum and Mare Cimmerium. Although the existence of seas on Mars had been discounted by the early 20th century, the true nature of the region remained obscure until the space age. In 1972, the Mariner 9 spacecraft showed that Hesperia was a cratered, wind-streaked plain. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally named the area Hesperia Planum in 1973. The dark areas flanking Hesperia Planum were found to be heavily cratered uplands. In 1979, the IAU designated the upland area to the west as Tyrrhena Terra and to the east as Terra Cimmeria. (Terra is a Latin descriptor term meaning land or continent.)

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