Lowell (Martian crater) Lowell (Martian crater) The Lowell Crater is a large impact crater on Aonia Terra in the Thaumasia quadrangle of Mars. The crater is about 203 kilometers (127 miles) in diameter. Lowell Crater has a ring of mountains on its floor which gives it a sort of bull's eye appearance. Its nearby features include the craters Slipher to the north, Douglass to the east, and Coblentz to the southwest, the small mountain Aonia Mons to the west, and Aonia Planum to the southeast. Lowell Crater is named for Percival Lowell who built the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1894, and
Percival Lowell saddened Lowell, a dedicated pacifist. This, along with some setbacks in his astronomical work (described below), undermined his health and contributed to his death from a stroke on November 12, 1916, aged 61. Lowell is buried on Mars Hill near his observatory. Lowell claimed to "stick to the church" though at least one current author describes him as an agnostic. Lowell became determined to study Mars and astronomy as a full-time career after reading Camille Flammarion's "La planète Mars". He was particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the