Mercury cliff gets Dutch name

An enormous cliff wall on the planet Mercury has been given a Dutch name, Nos news reports on Tuesday.

The US space agency Nasa has named the cliff after the Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship Duyfken, the first European ship to reach Australia in 1606.

The Duyfken Rupes (Latin for cliff) is 500 kilometre long and lies in the southern hemisphere of Mercury.

It is not the first time Dutch names have been given to space objects. The moon has the Uco van Wijk crater, named after a Dutch astronomer, and on Mars there are craters named Amsterdam, Edam and Urk.

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