A small patch of Mars has been named "Winnipeg"

Saturday, September 19, 2015, 3:38 PM - NASA researchers have named a small patch of Mars "Winnipeg". The name is a likely nod to the fact that temperatures in the city can sometimes get as cold as temperatures on the Red Planet.

The area had previously been referred to as "target". According to the CBC, it is approximately a foot across.

While it may be small, "Winnipeg" is important because it could hold clues on whether there was ever life on Mars.

"It's one of the small foot-across areas of Mars that is being studied up in detail out of the whole rest of the planet," Scott Young, an astronomer and manager of science communication and visitor experiences at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg, told the CBC. 

"Lots of the planet doesn't get any name at all other than, you know, some big broad name. But this little piece of real estate up there, we got a claim to it."

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NASA first referred to the spot as "Winnipeg" on Monday in a mission update posted to the Mars rover website. The agency hasn't elaborated on why it chose the name.

Still, Young thinks it has to do with with the weather.

"It's kind of nice to know that the folks at NASA actually noticed back a couple years ago, when we were all talking about the concurrent weather measurements of Winnipeg's winter and the temperature on Mars and how we were colder," he told the CBC.

This isn't the first time NASA has showed Canada some love.

In 2012, the space agency named the landing spot of the Curiosity rover after Yellowknife, a Canadian city where one of the world's oldest rocks was found.

NASA plans to analyze rocks on "Winnipeg" and take geological images of the area.

Source: CBC