Mars Express Spots Chaotic Terrain near Valles Marineris

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has imaged a fascinating landscape near the major canyon system of Valles Marineris on the Red Planet.

Valles Marineris is a vast canyon system that runs along the Martian equator just east of the Tharsis region.

It is 4,000 km (2,500 miles) long and reaches depths of up to 7 km (4 miles) — roughly 10 times longer and 5 times deeper than the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

It comprises myriad smaller rifts, channels, outflows, fractures and signs of flowing material (such as water, ice, lava or debris).

Valles Marineris is an unmissable scar on the face of Mars, and thought to have formed as the planet’s crust was stretched by nearby volcanic activity, causing it to rip and crack open before collapsing into the deep troughs we see today.

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0. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

This image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard ESA’s Mars Express shows craters, valleys and chaotic terrain in Pyrrhae Regio, Mars.

Chaotic terrain forms as a shifting subsurface layer of melting ice and sediment causes the surface above to collapse.

In the chaotic terrain seen here, ice has melted, the resulting water drained away, and a number of disparate broken blocks have been left standing in now-empty cavities (which once hosted ice).

This image comprises data gathered by HRSC on August 3, 2020.

Source / Image Courtesy

Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Perspective view of chaotic terrain in Pyrrhae Regio, Mars.

Source / Image Courtesy

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