Mars Crater named after Langtang

A crater on Mars has been named after Langtang village of Nepal. The International Astronomical Union has named a 9.8 km i.e. 6 mile wide crater on Mars as Langtang. Tjalling de Haas, the researcher behind the move, said that ,”The move was taken to pay tribute to Nepali Village Langtang which was devastated by the earthquake.”

Dr de Haas, who studies Mars’s physical geography at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told the BBC he chose Langtang because his colleague had worked there while studying Himalayan glaciers.”It was his base camp for a long period, so we said maybe it’s a nice tribute to call [the crater] Langtang,” he said.

Langtang was a “scientifically important” crater, Dr De Haas said. “The marks on the top of the crater wall were probably water flows, and below them you can see ridges – the remains of former glaciers.”

Source: BBC News