Fly Through a Canyon on Mars, Thanks to Mars Express

By Nancy Atkinson - July 15, 2013 at 1:43 PM UTC | Planetary Science
hebes.jpg

Take a ride through a Hebes Chasma, a canyon just north of the largest canyon on Mars – and the Solar System -- Valles Marineris. The video provides an awesome view, but this is not a wild ride with Luke Skywalker through trenches of the Death Star …. it's more like a tourist pleasure cruise which provides picturesque views of this 8 km-deep canyon.

ESA provides all the tourist info of what you are seeing:

The movie glides over impact craters pockmarking the plains separating the troughs, down cliff faces scarred by landslides, and along the rough valley floor.

In some parts of the valley Mars Express has detected water-bearing minerals, suggesting that significant quantities of water may have once flowed here.

The formation of Hebes Chasma is likely connected to the nearby volcanic Tharsis region, home to the planet's vast Olympus Mons volcano.

During periods of intense volcanism the whole region stretched upwards, causing tremendous stress in the crust further way. Unable to withstand the strain, the crust ripped open, collapsing into the chasms found in and around Valles Marineris.

Funny, I was just thinking over the weekend it had been a long time since I'd seen a flythough video from Mars! If you need more, the

HiRISE folks have a nice collection of flythrough videos here.

Source:

ESA

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com