Valles Marineris on Mars, 20 times wider than the Grand Canyon, is seen in this stunning new photo
The huge Valles Marineris Valley has been revealed in stunning new images taken by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express. The Valley of the Red Planet is 2,485 miles long, over 124 miles wide and over 4 miles deep, making America look pretty dim by comparison. Vallis Marineris stretches from the northern tip of Norway to the southern tip of Sicily. The new image depicts two moats, or chasmas, that make up the western part of Valles Marineris. On the left is the lus Chasma which is 521 miles long and on the right is the Tithonium Chasma which is 500 miles long. The image uses data from the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard Mars Express and is a “true color” image, meaning it shows what the human eye would see if it looked at this region of Mars. Scroll down for the video A tilted perspective view of the Tithonium Chasma (pictured above), which is part of the Martian Valles Marineris valley structure, created from a digital, analog channel and color model of the terrain