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For comparison, the apparent diameter of the Moon from Earth is 31′. Earth and Moon from Mars, imaged by Mars Global Surveyor on May 8, 2003, 13:00 UTC. South America is visible. The minimum angular separation would be less than 1′, and occasionally the Moon would be seen to transit in front of or pass behind (be occulted by) the Earth.
If placed on Earth, Valles Marineris would span the width of North America. [36] In places, the canyons are up to 300 km wide and 10 km deep. Often compared to Earth's Grand Canyon, the Valles Marineris has a very different origin than its tinier, so-called counterpart on Earth. The Grand Canyon is largely a product of water erosion.
The Kasei Valles are a giant system of canyons in Mare Acidalium and Lunae Palus quadrangles on Mars, centered at 24.6° north latitude and 65.0° west longitude. They are 1,580 km (980 mi) long and were named for the word for "Mars" in Japanese. [1] This is one of the largest outflow channel systems on Mars.
The most conspicuous feature of Mars is a sharp contrast, known as the Martian dichotomy, between the Southern and the Northern hemispheres.The two hemispheres' geography differ in elevation by 1 to 3 km.
Areography, also known as the geography of Mars, is a subfield of planetary science that entails the delineation and characterization of regions on Mars. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Areography is mainly focused on what is called physical geography on Earth; that is the distribution of physical features across Mars and their cartographic representations.
The Valles Marineris trough system, which is over 4000 km long, 600 km wide, and up to 7 km deep, would, if located on Earth, extend all the way across North America. [4] The study indicates that the Ius-Melas-Coprates fault zone is a left-slip transtensional system similar to that of the Dead Sea fault zone on Earth. [5]
The physical features of land are remarkably varied. The largest mountain ranges—the Himalayas in Asia and the Andes in South America—extend for thousands of kilometres. The longest rivers are the river Nile in Africa (6,695 kilometres or 4,160 miles) and the Amazon river in South America (6,437 kilometres or 4,000 miles).
For comparison, Earth's crust averages 27.3 ± 4.8 km in thickness. [49] The most abundant elements in the Martian crust are silicon, oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminium, calcium, and potassium. Mars is confirmed to be seismically active; [50] in 2019 it was reported that InSight had detected and recorded over 450 marsquakes and related events ...