Mars’ Valles Marineris in the Mariner Valley, an enormous canyon in the Valles Marines hemisphere, makes the Grand Canyon in the United States look like a play park.

Thanks to NASA’s Viking Orbiter, we now have high-resolution images of the tectonic crack in the Martian crust which stretches across a fair portion of the red planet.

Larger than Earth’s Grand Canyon

It spans one-fifth of the planet’s entire circumference along the equator. This canyon is one of the largest in the entire solar system, approximately 4 000km long, up to 6.5km deep and up to 195km wide.

It’s enormous, especially when compared to the Grand Canyon’s 445km length, 29km width and about 1.6km depth.

It is also interesting to understand how this was formed. The canyons resulted from a tectonic crack in the planet’s crust, probably during the creation of the Tharsis region.

This is a volcanic plateau near the western hemisphere’s equator. Fractures or cracks were caused when the volcanoes were pushed upwards by the thickening crust, which became wider over time due to erosion.

Other regions were also formed by underground water rushing up and flooding the area, which again caused erosion.

NASA has taken over a hundred photos from the Viking orbiter mission between 1975 and 1982 to form a beautiful view of this incredible geological feature.

Image via: NASA

Suggested timeline for Mars exploration

Elon Musk had his sights set on Mars for quite some and developed a bold timeline for starting a colony on the Red Planet. He hopes to have humans on Mars by 2024.

Apart from developing Starships, SpaceX has been developing a test facility in Texas where it completed a 600-kilowatt solar array and two ground station antennas that may also prove useful for Crew Dragon missions.

From 2020 to 2022, SpaceX intends to work on the next stage of the Starship development, while Musk has earmarked 2022 as the first time SpaceX will send unmanned ships to Mars.

Artist’s representation of Starship missions. Image via SpaceX.

Also read – SpaceX’s Starhopper almost ready for its first flight [photos]

Musk explained that the ships would place power, mining and life support infrastructure for future flights. Each ship would carry around 100 tons of supplies. Two years later, we can expect a manned mission headed to the red planet.

“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great – and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” Elon Musk

Artist’s representation of a colony on Mars. Image via SpaceX

The first teams will set up a propellant production plant to create methane and liquid oxygen required to return home. They will also be tasked with growing plants and foods by means of solar-powered hydroponics.

Musk predicts that the first colony on Mars will begin to take shape by 2025. Paul Wooster, SpaceX’s principal Mars development engineers, explains:

“The idea would be to expand out, start off not just with an outpost, but grow into a larger base, not just like there are in Antarctica, but really a village, a town, growing into a city and then multiple cities on Mars.”

Watch: Elon Musk talking about Mars exploration at SXSW 2018