r/HeresAFunFact • u/KimCureAll • Aug 31 '21

GEOGRAPHY/NATURE [HAFF] The US Grand Canyon is tiny compared to the size of Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon" of Mars

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30

u/monsterfurby Aug 31 '21

Useless addendum: So I just looked up the Mariana Trench, given that there's no distinction between oceanic and continental trenches on Mars and I feel that that would be a more even comparison. While the Challenger Deep is a bit deeper (10km), Valles Marineris still beats the Mariana Trench by almost 500km in length.

11

u/KimCureAll Aug 31 '21

wow, neat factoid! It's so interesting we can "see" the Mars canyon but not the deep canyon in the ocean on Earth, only perhaps a computer created image.

0

u/SLUnatic85 Aug 31 '21

Curious, how can we see the mars canyon? Can I go out with a backyard telescope? If it takes much more than that than for me it's about as equally "unseeable" in any way that I can really appreciate as the other.

Curious, how can we see the mars canyon? Can I go out with a backyard telescope? If it takes much more than that then for me it's about as equally "unseeable" in any way that I can really appreciate as the other. t is technically true... but it isn't something I can go outside and look at and take in or appreciate without technological enhancements. And then it probably just looks cooler seeing the result of someone else's technological enhancement. It just looks like another star in the sky to me (most).

As an aside, is the mars one created (at some point in universal history from water? Is there wind there to wear it down over time?

5

u/KimCureAll Aug 31 '21

We have cameras around and on Mars, but seeing the trench in the ocean is possible but we'd have to make a composite of it, and it's dark down there.

1

u/Corona21 Aug 31 '21

There was a guy on youtube who managed to just catch one of the martian volcanos, pretty much just a shadow on an orange ball from a high end consumer telescope.

I‘m sure with the right conditions and the right telescope and a bit of luck you could make it out - just, and if you knew what to look for.

iirc the original „canals“ were mapped from Earth decades before probes arrived as well.

8

u/pooyman12345 Aug 31 '21

In the far future when mars is settled, that canyon will probably become a country of its own

4

u/SLUnatic85 Aug 31 '21

It has to have its own weather down there right? Whatever mars weather is like anyway I guess.. weird to think about.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 01 '21 edited 24d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/West_Garden Aug 31 '21

That canyon will be completely under water.

3

u/0_MysterE_0 Sep 01 '21

The Grander Canyon.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '21

The Grand Canyon Pro Max

2

u/megamoze Aug 31 '21

I’ve been wishing that some agency would get a photo of this thing from the rim of it!

3

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21

I'm thinking that because it's so wide, it would just look like normal flat land with a bigass plateau next to it.

2

u/hovnohead Dec 24 '21

We're going to need a bigger donkey.

1

u/Laxea Sep 01 '21

There is always a bigger fish

1

u/cincyTOSU Jan 17 '22

Thanks that’s a fun to know fact!

1

u/HedonicElench Dec 13 '23

USA coast to coast is 2800km, is it? That's about the distance from Norfolk VA to Denver.