Big mountains everywhere inside Valles Marineris
Click for original image.
While the giant canyon Valles Marineris on Mars is known best as the biggest known canyon in the solar system — large enough to cover the continental United States several times over — that size tends to diminish the mountainous nature of its interior. Today’s cool image attempts once again (see for example these earlier posts here, here, here, here, and here) to illustrate that stupendous and mountainous nature.
The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 15, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The goal of the picture was to get a better view of the numerous layers of this terraced cliff wall. What I see, however from my tourist’s perspective, is a steep wall that descends almost 4,500 feet from the high to the low point in just over three miles. This is as steep if not steeper than the walls of the Grand Canyon.
On the overview map to the right the white dot in the inset marks the location, about 20-25 miles from the southern rim of Valles Marineris, in a region of the canyon where there are many interior mountains.
What makes this terrain even more stupendous is that the high point here is still about 18,000 feet below that rim. While the mountains here all rise quickly several thousand feet, all are dwarfed by the wall the forms the canyon’s rim.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Click for original image.
While the giant canyon Valles Marineris on Mars is known best as the biggest known canyon in the solar system — large enough to cover the continental United States several times over — that size tends to diminish the mountainous nature of its interior. Today’s cool image attempts once again (see for example these earlier posts here, here, here, here, and here) to illustrate that stupendous and mountainous nature.
The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 15, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The goal of the picture was to get a better view of the numerous layers of this terraced cliff wall. What I see, however from my tourist’s perspective, is a steep wall that descends almost 4,500 feet from the high to the low point in just over three miles. This is as steep if not steeper than the walls of the Grand Canyon.
On the overview map to the right the white dot in the inset marks the location, about 20-25 miles from the southern rim of Valles Marineris, in a region of the canyon where there are many interior mountains.
What makes this terrain even more stupendous is that the high point here is still about 18,000 feet below that rim. While the mountains here all rise quickly several thousand feet, all are dwarfed by the wall the forms the canyon’s rim.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
I’m trying hard to imagine what that would look like from the bottom of the valley and am failing. At age 65 I seriously doubt that, apart from some stupendous jump in technology or longevity, I’ll be able to be a tourist on Mars. But were it possible I’d give up everything I have to be able to do so, and live on ramen noodles and memories for the rest of my life.
Thank you for the “high” and “low” labels. For some reason, looking at shadows in satellite images does that “young woman/old crone picture” thing to my brain. Up and down toggle and it’s really hard to switch them back.