Exploring just one small corner of Valles Marineris, Mars’ Grand Canyon
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 19, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the many many many layers that are found in the cliffs of Valles Marineris, the largest known canyon in the solar system and far far larger that Earth’s Grand Canyon.
The elevation difference between the red dots is just under 4,000 feet. Yet that high point is still more than 7,000 feet below the rim of the canyon, more than thirty miles to the south. And the lower dot is still about 18,000 feet above the low point in this side canyon of Valles Marineris, about thirty miles away to the northeast.
In other words, in sixty miles from rim to floor the canyon at this location drops about 25,000 feet, only 4,000 feet less than the height of Mount Everest. Compare that with the Grand Canyon’s slopes, which drops in eleven miles about 5,000 feet, beginning at the main south rim lookout at the start of Bright Angel trail.
The white cross in the overview map above, on the western end of Candor Canyon, marks the location of these high mesas in Valles Marineris. Note that the low point of this part of western half of Candor is not the low point this part of Valles Marineris. At its center, where it intersects the north-south gap from Ophir to Melas, the low point is still another 7,000 feet lower.
This means if one were to hike from that low point to the rim, you would climb the equivalent of about 32,000 feet, 3,000 feet more than going from sea level to the top of Mount Everest. Nor would that hike be short, as it would cover a distance of about 175 miles.
As a hike, in the below-freezing Martian climate, this would likely be close to impossible. As a road trip, however, in a really good Martian-designed vehicle driving along a well-made road, this would make one heck of a great Sunday drive!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 19, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the many many many layers that are found in the cliffs of Valles Marineris, the largest known canyon in the solar system and far far larger that Earth’s Grand Canyon.
The elevation difference between the red dots is just under 4,000 feet. Yet that high point is still more than 7,000 feet below the rim of the canyon, more than thirty miles to the south. And the lower dot is still about 18,000 feet above the low point in this side canyon of Valles Marineris, about thirty miles away to the northeast.
In other words, in sixty miles from rim to floor the canyon at this location drops about 25,000 feet, only 4,000 feet less than the height of Mount Everest. Compare that with the Grand Canyon’s slopes, which drops in eleven miles about 5,000 feet, beginning at the main south rim lookout at the start of Bright Angel trail.
The white cross in the overview map above, on the western end of Candor Canyon, marks the location of these high mesas in Valles Marineris. Note that the low point of this part of western half of Candor is not the low point this part of Valles Marineris. At its center, where it intersects the north-south gap from Ophir to Melas, the low point is still another 7,000 feet lower.
This means if one were to hike from that low point to the rim, you would climb the equivalent of about 32,000 feet, 3,000 feet more than going from sea level to the top of Mount Everest. Nor would that hike be short, as it would cover a distance of about 175 miles.
As a hike, in the below-freezing Martian climate, this would likely be close to impossible. As a road trip, however, in a really good Martian-designed vehicle driving along a well-made road, this would make one heck of a great Sunday drive!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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