The massive scale of Mars’ biggest canyon
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 24, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled merely a “terrain sample” by the camera team, it was likely taken not as part of any particular research project, but to fill a gap in the picture-taking schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.
When the camera team needs to do this, they try to pick interesting targets within the required timeframe. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes not. In today’s example, they succeeded quite well. As shown by the overview map above, this picture captures (as indicated by the rectangle) the top of the southern rim of Valles Marineris, the biggest canyon on Mars and quite possibly the biggest in the entire solar system.
For scale, the drop from the rim to the low point in this picture is about 9,000 feet. That’s a 1,000 feet more than the drop from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the canyon bottom at the Colorado River. In Valles Marineris however our descent has barely begun. To get to the bottom of the southern canyon here you still need to drop 15,000 more feet, for a total descent of 24,000 feet, an elevation change similar to most of the mountains in the Himalayas.
Nor are you yet at the bottom. If you climb over the ridge of 18,000-foot-high mountains that bisect Valles Marineris at this point, you can drop down even further, to a depth 31,000 feet below the southern rim.
Mount Everest is just over 29,000 feet high, which means if placed inside Valles Marineris is peak would still sit 2,000 feet below the rim.
The photo itself highlights part of the erosion process that formed Valles Marineris. This is the dry tropics, so no water was involved in shaping this terrain for many eons. Instead, what appear to be flows within the hollows is alluvial fill, material that over time breaks off and rolls downhill, filling the slopes below. Erosion will grind this material into smaller particles, so given enough time it flows almost like sand.
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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.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 24, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled merely a “terrain sample” by the camera team, it was likely taken not as part of any particular research project, but to fill a gap in the picture-taking schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.
When the camera team needs to do this, they try to pick interesting targets within the required timeframe. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes not. In today’s example, they succeeded quite well. As shown by the overview map above, this picture captures (as indicated by the rectangle) the top of the southern rim of Valles Marineris, the biggest canyon on Mars and quite possibly the biggest in the entire solar system.
For scale, the drop from the rim to the low point in this picture is about 9,000 feet. That’s a 1,000 feet more than the drop from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the canyon bottom at the Colorado River. In Valles Marineris however our descent has barely begun. To get to the bottom of the southern canyon here you still need to drop 15,000 more feet, for a total descent of 24,000 feet, an elevation change similar to most of the mountains in the Himalayas.
Nor are you yet at the bottom. If you climb over the ridge of 18,000-foot-high mountains that bisect Valles Marineris at this point, you can drop down even further, to a depth 31,000 feet below the southern rim.
Mount Everest is just over 29,000 feet high, which means if placed inside Valles Marineris is peak would still sit 2,000 feet below the rim.
The photo itself highlights part of the erosion process that formed Valles Marineris. This is the dry tropics, so no water was involved in shaping this terrain for many eons. Instead, what appear to be flows within the hollows is alluvial fill, material that over time breaks off and rolls downhill, filling the slopes below. Erosion will grind this material into smaller particles, so given enough time it flows almost like sand.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
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