Hypanis Vallis

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The Hypanis Valles are a set of channels in a 270 km

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams ove ...

in Xanthe Terra on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

at 11° N, 314° E, in the

Lunae Palus quadrangle The Lunae Palus quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The quadrangle is also referred to as MC-10 (Mars Chart-10). Lunae Planum and parts o ...

. They appear to have been carved by long-lived flowing water, and a significant deposit (interpreted by some to be a

river delta A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, or (more ra ...

) exists at their outlet into the lowlands.

. It is the largest proposed delta system on Mars. Image:Hypanis Vallis.JPG, A location in the Hypanis Valles, as seen by

HiRISE High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is a camera on board the '' Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter'' which has been orbiting and studying Mars since 2006. The 65 kg (143 lb), US$40 million instrument was built under the direction ...

(scale bar is 500 m)

Exploration

The Hypanis Valles system was one of the landing sites proposed for the Mars rover ''Curiosity'' of the

Mars Science Laboratory Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed ''Curiosity'', a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The overall objectives include investigati ...

mission, to assess the past habitability potential of that zone. However, it did not make the final cut. This location was also one of the four semifinalist candidate landing sites for the ExoMars rover, now renamed the ''Rosalind Franklin'' rover mission,Recommendation for the Narrowing of ExoMars 2018 Landing Sites
1 October 2014. ESA. due to launch in mid- to late 2020s, though it was eventually eliminated from the running. The goal of ExoMars is search for signs of any past or present

life on Mars The possibility of life on Mars is a subject of interest in astrobiology due to the planet's proximity and similarities to Earth. To date, no proof of past or present life has been found on Mars. Cumulative evidence suggests that during the ...

. The proposal was for the rover to land on the distal deposits adjacent to the Hypanis delta and the nearby Sabrina delta. These deposits are likely to be composed of fine grained sediment, having been laid down in a low energy environment, where any potential biosignatures could be preserved.

See also

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Geology of Mars The geology of Mars is the scientific study of the surface, crust, and interior of the planet Mars. It emphasizes the composition, structure, history, and physical processes that shape the planet. It is analogous to the field of terrestrial geo ...

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HiRISE High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is a camera on board the '' Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter'' which has been orbiting and studying Mars since 2006. The 65 kg (143 lb), US$40 million instrument was built under the direction ...

*

Lunae Palus quadrangle The Lunae Palus quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The quadrangle is also referred to as MC-10 (Mars Chart-10). Lunae Planum and parts o ...

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Outflow channels Outflow channels are extremely long, wide swathes of scoured ground on Mars. They extend many hundreds of kilometers in length and are typically greater than one kilometer in width. They are thought to have been carved by huge outburst floods. ...

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Vallis (planetary geology) ''Vallis'' or ''valles'' (plural ''valles'' ) is the Latin word for ''valley''. It is used in planetary geology to name landform features on other planets. Scientists used ''vallis'' for old river valleys they discovered when they sent the first ...

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Water on Mars Almost all water on Mars today exists as ice, though it also exists in small quantities as vapor in the atmosphere. What was thought to be low-volume liquid brines in shallow Martian soil, also called recurrent slope lineae, may be grains of ...

References

Further reading

* * {{Portal bar, Solar System Valleys and canyons on Mars Lunae Palus quadrangle