{"id":57177,"date":"2024-09-21T23:35:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-21T21:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=57177"},"modified":"2025-09-21T00:58:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:58:34","slug":"the-surface-of-the-planet-mars-and-the-colossal-size-of-its-great-canyon-the-valles-marineris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/09\/21\/the-surface-of-the-planet-mars-and-the-colossal-size-of-its-great-canyon-the-valles-marineris\/","title":{"rendered":"The surface of the planet Mars and the colossal size of its great canyon, the Valles Marineris"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within the Solar System we could say that Mars is like the little brother of planet Earth and an ideal destination to explore.<\/p>\n

Mimas, the satellite of Saturn that has a curious resemblance to the Death Star<\/a><\/rel>
\nA tour of the surface of Pluto and the reason why it stopped being a planet<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

Mars has a diameter of 6,794 kilometers, 53% the diameter of Earth.<\/strong> Its days are very similar, 24.6 hours long, but its year lasts 687 Earth days. Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos,<\/strong> which are irregular in shape. The planet has a thin atmosphere and its volcanoes (some of which are the largest shield volcanoes in the solar system) are inactive.<\/p>\n

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The most striking feature on the surface of Mars is Valles Marineris<\/strong> (Sailor's Valley in Latin), named after NASA's Mariner 9 spacecraft, launched in 1971 and which explored this area of \u200b\u200bthe planet. Valles Marineris is the largest known canyon in the entire Solar System, measuring more than 4,000 kilometres in length<\/strong>, some 200 kilometres wide and up to 7 kilometres deep.<\/p>\n

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Compared to Valles Marinensis, the Grand Canyon of Colorado is tiny<\/strong>, measuring 446 kilometers long, with a maximum width of 29 kilometers and a maximum depth of 800 meters.<\/p>\n

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The following image, published by NASA, can give us an idea of \u200b\u200bthe size of Valles Marineris compared to the United States<\/strong>, based on an image captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).<\/p>\n

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If you want to see more beautiful images of this planet, V101 Space<\/a> published an interesting video yesterday with real high-resolution photos of the surface of Mars<\/strong> and reviewing the history of space exploration of this world so close to ours:<\/p>\n