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Arizona’s Grand Canyon may be awe-inspiring, but it’s only a “scratch” compared to the immense Valles Marineris Canyon on Mars.
Cutting along the Martian equator for about 2,500 miles, the canyon would reach New York City in San Francisco if placed in the United States, according to NASA. The bottom of the canyon sinks 7 miles into the surrounding plains. It’s as deep as some of the deepest parts of the Earth’s ocean.
It’s the largest canyon in the solar system, and new images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal details of its colossal size.
The photos were taken using HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet. It is one of six instruments aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the University of Arizona said.
Despite some jaw-dropping pictures of Valles Marineris, scientists still don’t know how the gargantuan canyon complex formed, according to LiveScience.
“Unlike Earth’s Grand Canyon, Valles Marineris was probably not carved out by billions of years of precipitated water; the red planet is too hot and dry to have ever hosted a river big enough to cross the crust like this, ”LiveScience said.
Much of the canyon likely cracked billions of years ago, said the European Space Agency, when a cluster of nearby volcanoes, known as the Tharsis region, were first once pushed out of Martian soil.
“As the Tharsis bulge swelled with magma for the planet’s first billion years, the surrounding crust stretched, tearing and eventually collapsing into the gigantic hollows of Valles Marineris,” the agency said. spatial.
The Tharsis Bulge is home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, the Science Times reported.
According to LiveScience, further analysis of high-resolution photos like these will help solve the astonishing origin story of the solar system’s largest canyon.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mars Canyon Is Bigger Than Grand Canyon, The Largest In The Solar System: NASA
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