Mare, plural maria, 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 rilles and are devoid of water. There are about 20 major areas of this type, most of them—including the largest ones—located on the side of the Moon that always faces Earth. Maria are the largest topographic features on the Moon and can be seen from Earth with the unaided eye. Samples of lunar rock and soil brought back by Apollo astronauts proved that the maria are composed of basalt formed from surface lava flows that later congealed. The surface, down to approximately 5 metres (16 feet), shows effects of churning, fusing, and fragmenting as a result of several billion years of bombardment by small meteoroids. This debris layer, comprising rock fragments of all sizes down to fine dust, is called regolith. Before the first unmanned spacecraft landings on the Moon in the 1960s, some astronomers feared that the surface would be so pulverized that the machines might sink in. These missions—and the manned landings that followed—revealed that the regolith was only somewhat compressible and was firm enough to be supportive