APOD: Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon... (2011 Mar 27)

[APOD Robot]

Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars

Explanation: The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep. By comparison, the Earth's Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA is 800 kilometers long, 30 kilometers across, and 1.8 kilometers deep. The origin of the Valles Marineris remains unknown, although a leading hypothesis holds that it started as a crack billions of years ago as the planet cooled. Several geologic processes have been identified in the canyon. The above mosaic was created from over 100 images of Mars taken by Viking Orbiters in the 1970s.

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[neufer]

Click to view full size image

[mexhunter]

Super resolution. Beautiful image.
Greetings
César

[Beyond]

Neufer, it is said that a picture is worth 1000 words, and yet You, The Most Laquacious Quotidian Quotationist of ALL TIME, has not offered us even a single word of why you posted a pink Flamingo. And one flying with It's eyes closed, at that.
Defend yourself yon knave neufer, lest ye be Flogged with a Flummoxed Flaming Flamingo What say ye

[Chris Peterson]

Neufer, it is said that a picture is worth 1000 words, and yet You, The Most Laquacious Quotidian Quotationist of ALL TIME, has not offered us even a single word of why you posted a pink Flamingo. And one flying with It's eyes closed, at that.
Defend yourself yon knave neufer, lest ye be Flogged with a Flummoxed Flaming Flamingo :!: What say ye :?:

It's a Chilean Flamingo, but I think perhaps a Lesser Flamingo would have been a more appropriate choice, leading the viewer to contemplate other valleys on Earth that might be better compared to Valles Marineris than the Grand Canyon.

[nonprophet]

Super resolution. Beautiful image.
Greetings
César

Here is an admittedly crazy thought. Please tell me why it cannot be so.
Suppose that early in its history, Mars cooled faster than Earth because it's smaller. Somehow it had a grazing collision with Earth, which, being more molten, threw off material that became Earth's moon. Mars threw off its surface water, which was captured by Earth because of Earth's greater gravity. The collision left a scar on Mars, Valles Marineris, which only partially healed because the planet was less molten.

[nstahl]

Great image! And don't forget Google Mars, which is in Google Earth.

[neufer]

Neufer, it is said that a picture is worth 1000 words, and yet You, The Most Laquacious Quotidian Quotationist of ALL TIME, has not offered us even a single word of why you posted a pink Flamingo. And one flying with It's eyes closed, at that.
Defend yourself yon knave neufer, lest ye be Flogged with a Flummoxed Flaming Flamingo What say ye

I thought it was intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.

Owlice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. The chief difficulty Owlice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing.

[orin stepanek]

Awesome canyon! beautiful elegant bird; the flamingo!

[owlice]

The flamingo image even has the right orientation! Kudos, neufer! And thanks for the game of croquet!

(Y'all know that flamingos are pink because of their diet, yes? And their most northern nesting habitat is in Kazakhstan.)

What a planet! What a crack! What a mosaic! It's hard to wrap my head around the size of this super grand canyon; my first view of the Earth's Grand Canyon stunned me speechless.

[geckzilla]

I thought the flamingo was a reference to the teaser title for tomorrow's APOD, flappy sky. But I don't know why he would post about tomorrow's APOD in today's thread.

[Beyond]

I thought it was intuitively obvious to the most casual observer

AHA! That's the problem. I'm a Milliways pundit. There's 'nothing' casual about me. The only thing i know about Flamingos is what i have seen on TV over the years and i don't remember anything about what I've seen that would have lead me to have made a connection between Flamingos and any Canyon, wherever it may be. There-fore you can forget about the being Flogged with a Flummoxed Flaming Flamingo. (The Flamingo wasn't really up to doing it anyway)

[Beyond]

I thought the flamingo was a reference to the teaser title for tomorrow's APOD, flappy sky. But I don't know why he would post about tomorrow's APOD in today's thread.

Geckzilla, He's a psychic that's ahead of his time.

[WildGuruLarry]

Here is an admittedly crazy thought. Please tell me why it cannot be so.
Suppose that early in its history, Mars cooled faster than Earth because it's smaller. Somehow it had a grazing collision with Earth, which, being more molten, threw off material that became Earth's moon. Mars threw off its surface water, which was captured by Earth because of Earth's greater gravity. The collision left a scar on Mars, Valles Marineris, which only partially healed because the planet was less molten.

That is a crazy thought. The problem is that such a collision is way more violent than you seem to assume. For example, check out this simulation of the formation of the moon:

[owlice]

mars flamingo half.jpg

[moonstruck]

Girtie what a gash. I wish the writers would also use miles along with kilometers when they give distances. Some of us old timers have a hard time with kilos. By the time I check it out on my unit converter I already forgot why I was looking it up.

[owlice]

moonstruck, you can type (for example) "3000 km in miles" into Google to get the English units. If you use the Google toolbar, you have the converter available to you all the time, for all kinds of things (currency, temperature, etc.).

[biddie67]

Whew - Owlice, thank you for supplying your flamingoed-Mars picture above. Neufer's "intuitively obvious" submission had left me puzzling over his associations between the APOD and his pink birdie ....

But back to the APOD picture - WOW!!!

[Chris Peterson]

Girtie what a gash. I wish the writers would also use miles along with kilometers when they give distances. Some of us old timers have a hard time with kilos. By the time I check it out on my unit converter I already forgot why I was looking it up. :oops:

But since "old timers" learned their 'rithmatic without calculators, most can do a bit of simple reckoning in their heads, no? Kilometers times two divided by three will get you in the miles ballpark.

[owlice]

Whew - Owlice, thank you for supplying your flamingoed-Mars picture above. Neufer's "intuitively obvious" submission had left me puzzling over his associations between the APOD and his pink birdie ....

But back to the APOD picture - WOW!!!

biddie, I might be wrong. Neufer's flamingo made me laugh immediately, though, so if I'm wrong... gee, I'm not sure what that says about me, but likely something.

And yes, WOW!!! for the picture!!

[Beyond]

mars flamingo half.jpg

NOW i can relate to neufer's post
Thanks owlice.

[bystander]

I thought the flamingo was a reference to the teaser title for tomorrow's APOD, flappy sky.
But I don't know why he would post about tomorrow's APOD in today's thread.

When has neufer needed a reason for anything?

[Boomer12k]

Great picture, AWESOME image for using 1970's pictures!!!!!

To me it looks like a volcanic rift. Not so much like the grand canyon which was cut by water as the ground ROSE UP. This looks like it split apart. And that is what the captions basically says. Close up picture from the Roving Mouse: Mars Atlas looks like it was impacted, and then like the Mara on the Moon, filled in with lava. Personally, I see landslides, impacts, lava basins, and not water erosion. My opinion....

[kaigun]

Speaking of miles and kilometers, the text for the photo says the canyon is 3000km long, while the JPL video linked to says the canyon is 3000 miles long (NY to LA). Which is correct, and didn't we lose one of the Martian probes because of English unit/metric unit foul-up?

[Sam]

It's a Chilean Flamingo, but I think perhaps a Lesser Flamingo would have been a more appropriate choice, leading the viewer to contemplate other valleys on Earth that might be better compared to Valles Marineris than the Grand Canyon.

Perhaps you are getting at the East African Rift which is home to said Lesser Flamingo (Phoenicopterus minor)?

A greater number of Lesser Flamingos

Click to view full size image

African Rift Valley

Click to view full size image

I assume the apparent differences between this Martian rift valley (with its stark cliffs and fantastic depth) and Tellurian rift valleys (with their shallow walls, and their tendency to be filled with water and perhaps flamingos) are perhaps indicative of more active erosional processes from water and a thicker atmosphere?