page_title: Eagle (Meridiani Planum crater)
section_title: Name
hierarchical_section_title: Eagle (Meridiani Planum crater) / Name
caption_attribution_description: This part of w:HiRISE image (PSP_001414_1780_RED.jp2) shows the landing site of the w:Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/PSP/PSP_001414_1780/ File: PSP_001414_1780_RED.jp2 Author: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona License: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/policy/ Data: 2006-11-29
context_page_description: Eagle is a 22-metre long impact crater located on the Meridiani Planum extraterrestrial plain, situated within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle portion of the planet Mars. The Opportunity rover came to rest inside Eagle crater when it landed in 2004. Scientists were delighted that the rover landed there, as the crater contains rocky outcroppings that helped prove that Meridiani was once an ocean floor.
  This crater should not be confused with the other, much larger Martian crater Eagle, which was officially named by IAU's Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature in 1976.
context_section_description: The name is a triple reference: in honor of the first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon in 1969; in honor of the launching country, the United States, whose symbol is an eagle; and in reference to the golf term eagle, referring to sinking a ball two strokes under par. The third reference extended the golf metaphor begun with a description of landing in the crater as "a hole in one".
caption: HiRISE image of the Martian crater Eagle – the dot in the middle of the crater is the lander.
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