Valles Marineris

Canyon Week continues today with a surprise that I bet you weren't looking for. We have left terrestrial Earth on a journey to a canyon that is so large it is very difficult to imagine. Valles Marineris on Mars is a phenomenally large canyon. It is over 4000km long, 200km wide and 7km deep. For those of you who are not friendly with the metric system that means "it is huge!" No really, that means that it is 2500 miles long, 125 miles wide and more than 4 miles deep. There is no comparison to be made with anything on Earth and as I mentioned the Grand Canyon will be a posting later this week so you can make comparisons to that later.

The canyon cuts across the picture above. Below you can see some of the depths of the canyon in false color.

Needless to say, I haven't been to this canyon. As needless as it was, I said it anyway!