Posted on 01/04/2021 5:42:32 PM PST by BenLurkin
About 87 million miles (140 million kilometers) above the Grand Canyon, an even larger, grander abyss cuts through the gut of the Red Planet. Known as Valles Marineris, this system of deep, vast canyons runs more than 2,500 miles (4,000 km) along the Martian equator, spanning nearly a quarter of the planet's circumference. This gash in the bedrock of Mars is nearly 10 times as long as Earth's Grand Canyon and three times deeper, making it the single largest canyon in the solar system — and, according to ongoing research from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, one of the most mysterious.
Using an incredibly high-resolution camera called HiRISE (short for High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, UA scientists have been taking close-up shots of the planet's strangest features since 2006. Despite some truly breathtaking images of Valles Marineris — like the one below, posted to the HiRISE website on Dec. 26, 2020 — scientists still aren't sure how the gargantuan canyon complex formed.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
“Canyon was once an uninhabitable Mars-like world of the Kzin Patriarchy originally called...
Great pics!
Second largest. The largest canyon belongs to Hope Solo.
Bfl
Valles Marineris is perhaps better compared to rift valleys on Earth, and we have a couple big ones too...
While reading up on Mars (had not done so recently) I found an interesting article on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakes_on_Mars
From that and other reading, I’d say that in the distant past Mars’ conditions would have been, at times, almost Earthlike but even more, shall we say “exhilarating”. ;-)
(Due credit for use of the word “exhilarating”, regarding planetary conditions, to Star Trek and the character Kruge.)
Starting the next day, and for weeks after, I got Google ads for hair lice products.
Google claims that no person scans the contents of personal emails, but evidently they have computer AI that does and tries to generate relevant ad content.
Privacy is dead.
Bloody hell! these clowns are supposed to be the brightest and best of humanity.....
And they can't hypothesize how the hell a canyon is formed?
Mars quake?
billions of years of whatever passes for water there running over land?
Hells bells, revoke their paychecks, and get them jobs in McDonalds.
Bob
Call it Bob, is my vote.
I recall some comedy sketch where the guy reaches the Pacific Ocean and discovers it. It went something like:
“I hearby name this the Bob Johnson Ocean after me!
No - the Robert Johnson Ocean!
The Robert Ericson Johnson Ocean.
The Robert Ericson Johnson the Second Ocean.
Okay - to be specific - the Mister Robert Ericson Johnson the Second Ocean!”
Of course it got shortened to the Pacific.
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