Astronomy Picture of the Day
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2014 May 11
Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
Image Credit:
Viking Project,
USGS,
NASA
Explanation:
The largest canyon in the
Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of
Mars.
Named
Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends
over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as
600 kilometers across,
and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep.
By comparison, the
Earth's Grand Canyon
in Arizona, USA is 800 kilometers long, 30 kilometers across,
and 1.8 kilometers deep.
The origin of the
Valles Marineris remains unknown, although a leading hypothesis holds that it started as a
crack billions of years ago as the planet cooled.
Several geologic processes have been identified in
the canyon.
The
above mosaic was
created from over 100 images of
Mars taken by
Viking Orbiters in the 1970s.
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(
MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (
UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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