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According to The Indian Express, the global naming authority approved the new names on November 24, adding Periyar, Varkala, Thumba, Valiyamala and Bekal to the map of the Red Planet.
The proposal was presented by researchers Rajesh VJ and Asif Iqbal Kakkaseri of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) in Thiruvananthapuram.
The pair were studying an ancient crater in a region of Mars known as Xanthe Terra, where they found evidence of long-lost glacial and fluvial activity, indicating that water and ice once flowed across the landscape.
At the center of these new names is Krishnan Crater – a 3.5 billion-year-old impact crater named after MS Krishnan, a pioneering Indian scientist and the first Indian director of the Geological Survey of India.
This crater, located within Xanthe Terra and measuring more than 70 km in diameter, was selected in accordance with IAU guidelines, which state that large craters should be named after notable deceased scientists.
“The plain inside the Krishnan crater has been officially named Krishnan Palas, and a channel crossing it has been named Periyar Vallis,” Dr Rajesh told The Hindu.
The Kerala-inspired nomenclature doesn’t end with the crater itself. South of Krishnan Crater, a small valley now known as the Periyar Vallis extends across the area, mirroring the long and winding path of the Periyar River on Earth.
Apart from ‘Krishnan’, the IAU has approved a series of Kerala-based names for smaller features of the crater. ‘Valiyamala’, ‘Thumba’, ‘Bekal’, ‘Varkala’ and ‘Periyar’ are assigned small craters and a valley (valley), meaning there are now Mars equivalents for these Kerala locations.
‘Varkala’ designates a 9 kilometer crater named after the beach and coastal rocks; ‘Thumba’ honors the site of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)’s initial Equatorial Rocket Launch Centre; ‘Valiyamala’ refers to the home of IIST; And ‘Bekal’ is named for the historic northern Kerala fort overlooking the Arabian Sea.
Under IAU rules, major Martian craters are named after distinguished scientists, while smaller features may be named after towns or villages with populations less than 100,000, provided the names are easy to pronounce and have cultural or historical significance.
The IIST team had proposed several Kerala-based names during its six-year-old project, which was extended during the COVID-19 pandemic, when work was temporarily halted. According to the institute, IAU shared the final list of approved names on Tuesday.
This is the first time that place-names from Kerala have been used in Martian geography, creating a new connection between local culture and international space research.