The building blocks of English

Affixes

areo-

The planet Mars.

Greek Ares, the war god equivalent to the Roman god Mars after whom the planet is named.

Most terms containing areo‑ are direct equivalents to ones in geo‑ that relate to Earth. Several are late nineteenth-century coinages resulting from increased interest in the planet by astronomers: areographer, a person who studies the surface features of Mars; areology, the science of the physical structure of the planet. Others are relatively recent inventions resulting from exploration of the planet by space probes or deriving from science fiction: areosynchronous refers to a spacecraft in orbit around Mars that stays above the same spot on its surface, and areobotany is the study of (hypothetical) Martian vegetation, its areoflora.