Ares Vallis is an

outflow channel Outflow channels are extremely long, wide swathes of scoured ground on Mars.Carr, M.H. (2006), ''The Surface of Mars''. Cambridge Planetary Science Series, Cambridge University Press. They extend many hundreds of kilometers in length and are typ ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

, named after the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

name for Mars:

Ares Ares (; , ''Árēs'' ) is the List of Greek deities, Greek god of war god, war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for ...

, the god of war; it appears to have been carved by fluids, perhaps

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

. The valley 'flows' northwest out of the hilly

Margaritifer Terra Margaritifer Terra () is an ancient, heavily cratered region of Mars. It is centered just south of the Martian equator at and covers 2600 km at its widest extent. The area reveals "chaos terrain", outflow channels, and Alluvium, alluvial pla ...

, where the Iani Chaos depression long and wide) is connected to the beginning of Ares Vallis by a wide transition zone centered on 342.5° East (17.5 West) and 3° North. It then continues through the ancient Xanthe Terra highlands, and ends in a

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

-like region of Chryse Planitia. Ares Vallis was the landing site of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

's ''

Mars Pathfinder ''Mars Pathfinder'' was an American robotic spacecraft that landed a base station with a rover (space exploration), roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a Lander (spacecraft), lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a ligh ...

'' spacecraft, which studied a region of the valley near the border with Chryse in 1997. Ares Vallis is in the

Oxia Palus quadrangle The Oxia Palus quadrangle is one of a series of list of quadrangles on Mars, 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Oxia Palus quadrangle is also referred to as MC-11 (Mars ...

of Mars. It has been argued that Uzboi, Ladon, Margaritifer and Ares valles, although now separated by large craters, once comprised a single outflow channel, flowing north into Chryse Planitia. The source of this outflow has been suggested as overflow from the Argyre Crater, formerly filled to the brim as a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

by channels (Surius, Dzigai, and Palacopus Valles) draining down from the south pole. If real, the full length of this drainage system would be over , the longest known drainage path in the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. Under this suggestion, the extant form of the outflow channel Ares Vallis would thus be a remolding of a pre-existing structure. This long path for water flow has been named the * Uzboi-Landon-Morava (ULM) system. Water from this system may have helped to form Ares Vallis. Research, published in January 2010, suggests that Mars had lakes, each around wide, along parts of the equator. Although earlier research showed that Mars had a warm and wet early history that has long since dried up, these lakes existed in the

Hesperian The Hesperian is a system (stratigraphy), geologic system and geologic timescale, time period on the planet Mars characterized by widespread Volcanology of Mars, volcanic activity and catastrophic flooding that carved immense outflow channels acr ...

Epoch, a much earlier period. Using detailed images from NASA's

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter The ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter'' (''MRO'') is a spacecraft designed to search for the existence of water on Mars and provide support for missions to Mars, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on Au ...

, the researchers speculate that there may have been increased volcanic activity, meteorite impacts or shifts in Mars' orbit during this period to warm Mars' atmosphere enough to melt the abundant ice present in the ground. Volcanoes would have released gases that thickened the atmosphere for a temporary period, trapping more sunlight and making it warm enough for liquid water to exist. In this new study, channels were discovered that connected lake basins near Ares Vallis. When one lake filled up, its waters overflowed the banks and carved the channels to a lower area where another lake would form. These lakes would be another place to look for evidence of present or past

life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

References

External links

Google Mars scrollable map
- centered on ''Ares Vallis''. {{Authority control Valleys and canyons on Mars Oxia Palus quadrangle

See also

References

Further reading

External links