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- The term lunar maria means ‘sea on the Moon’. Mare (pronounced MAHR-ay) is the Latin word for sea, the plural of which is maria. Early humans mistook these dark plains to be real seas, which is where the name comes from. However, we know today that these dark gray zones are formed from iron-rich basalts produced in volcanic eruptions.
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The term lunar maria means ‘sea on the Moon’. Mare (pronounced MAHR-ay) is the Latin word for sea, the plural of which is maria. Early humans mistook these dark plains to be real seas, which is where the name comes from. However, we know today that these dark gray zones are formed from iron-rich basalts produced in volcanic eruptions.
Sep 27, 2023 · The dark areas are known as “mare” (or maria) which is the Latin word for “seas”. They’re called maria because early scientists believed they could see oceans on the moon. But the dark stretches on the surface of the moon were not oceans at all. What the “maria” actually turned out to be were volcanic basins. They were created in ...
mare, any flat, dark plain of lower elevation on the Moon. The term, which in Latin means “sea,” was erroneously applied to such features by telescopic observers of the 17th century. In actuality, maria are huge basins containing lava flows marked by craters, ridges, faults, and straight and meandering valleys called rille s and are devoid ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei misinterpreted the lunar lava plains as seas while observing the Moon through an early telescope. Galilei therefore dubbed them maria after the Latin word for "seas".
The light areas of the Moon are known as the highlands. The dark features, called maria (Latin for seas), are impact basins that were filled with lava between 4.2 and 1.2 billion years ago. These light and dark areas represent rocks of different composition and ages, which provide evidence for how the early crust may have crystallized from a ...
Maria is the plural, seas (pronounced Mah-ree-a). While we see much of this when viewed from earth, only 17% of the lunar surface is classed as maria. These were mistaken by early astronomers for seas and are also known as the lowlands. Terrae is the collective name for highlands.
Mar 22, 2024 · Lunar Maria, also known as lunar seas, are large dark plains on the surface of the Moon. They are called “seas” because early astronomers mistook them for bodies of water due to their smooth appearance. In reality, Lunar Maria are vast basaltic plains formed by ancient volcanic activity on the Moon.
