Tithonium Chasma is one large canyon. At a staggering 810 kilometers (503 miles) in length, it is a major part of Valles Marineris – the largest known canyon system in the entire Solar System.
This close-up image of the chasm was brought back in 2013 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and was just unveiled as the HiRISE Day Photo.
The image shows about a kilometer (0.6 miles) of Mars land with fertile hills and valleys, but as you can see in the other images, once you start moving out, this is just one a small section of gigantic full.
(NASA / JPL / UArizona)
But how did it arrive? The Grand Canyon on Earth – which is five times shallower and 10 times shorter than the Valles Marineris – was carved by the Colorado River.
But scientists aren’t sure what would have created an 8- to 10-kilometer (5 to 6.2 mile) deep canyon of Valles Marineris and Tithonium Chasma, so they’ve been taking pictures to try to get out.
We know that the tilt of the Mars axis (known as the tilt) is not as stable as the Earth’s axis, going from more than 60 degrees to less than 10 in ancient times.
Infertile, uncovered version of the above photograph. (NASA / JPL / UArizona)
“It is possible, though not proven, that a higher deficiency triggered the partial melting of some of Mars’ water ice, ”HiRISE spokesman Edwin Kite wrote back in 2014.
“Our best chance at this is to find heaps of ice, dust, mud or sand that have accumulated over many cycles of obliquity change.”
The image of Tithonium Chasma above illustrates these conclusions. The sedimentary layers – those dark and light strips that run abruptly down the center of the image – are almost identical, perhaps showing a gradual build-up of sediments over many long circles of the this axial tilt change.
Map showing the location on the Valles Marineris. (NASA / JPL / UArizona)
Even seven years after this photo was taken, we are still not sure what the Valles Marineris created. Some researchers suspect that a large tectonic “crack” may have separated the surface of Mars, to be developed later by the flow of lava, or water that could occur if there was an axial tilt. the planet just right.
But in reality, while these images are scientifically interesting to astronauts, they are also just brilliant.
The sheer scale of the peaks and other basins, captured by a spacecraft 264 kilometers (163.8 miles) from the planet’s surface, is largely unprovable.
You can see even more pictures of the Valles Marineris here.