[Epoch Times, July 26, 2022](The Epoch Times reporter Di Rui compiled and reported) The European Space Agency (ESA) has released the latest photos of Mars Marineris (Valles Marineris) taken by the Mars Express rover. .
Canyon Mariner is 4,000 kilometers long, 200 kilometers wide and 7 kilometers deep at its deepest point, making it the longest known canyon on any planet in the solar system. Compared with the famous Grand Canyon in Arizona, Mariner Canyon is 10 times longer, 20 times wider and 5 times deeper.
The new images were taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express. The camera has previously sent back photos of a variety of terrain on Mars like volcanoes, lava pools, and riverbeds. It is capable of taking full-color 3D photos with a resolution of up to 10 meters.
The Grand Canyon of the United States was formed by the long-term erosion of the Colorado River, while the Martian Mariner Canyon was formed by the cracking of the ground caused by the crustal movement.
The photo shows two chasms in the west of the canyon, a large number of parallel lines, and some terrain that looks like a pile of rubble, which ESA believes indicates a recent landslide event there.
The rough terrain there suggests the divides were previously filled with liquid material, ESA said. These unusual topographical features are left behind when they evaporate.
Mars Express is an orbiting probe orbiting Mars, which departed from Earth to Mars in June 2003. That was the moment when Mars and Earth were closest to each other. Such an opportunity arises every 26 months.
After a six-month flight, Mars Express arrived on Mars in December 2003, orbiting Mars along a near-polar orbit, and began various tasks to explore Mars: taking a large number of photos, detecting the material structure under the Martian crust , and analyzing the chemical composition of the Martian atmosphere. ◇
Responsible editor: Ye Ziwei