Dao Vallis is a valley on

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 ...

that appears to have been carved by water. It runs southwestward into

Hellas Planitia Hellas Planitia is a plain located within the huge, roughly circular impact basin Hellas located in the southern hemisphere of the planet Mars. Hellas is the fourth- or fifth-largest known impact crater in the Solar System. The basin floor ...

from the southern slopes of the volcano Hadriacus Mons, and has been identified as 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 ...

. It and its

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

, Niger Vallis, extend for about . It is named after the Thai word for

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

, and it was proposed as a potential landing site for the 2012

Curiosity rover ''Curiosity'' is a car-sized Mars rover Space exploration, exploring Gale (crater), Gale crater and Mount Sharp on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. ''Curiosity'' was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ...

of the

Mars Science Laboratory Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic spacecraft, robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed ''Curiosity (rover), Curiosity'', a Mars rover, in Gale (crater), Gale Crater on Augus ...

mission. In the fictional 2007 Canadian miniseries '' Race to Mars'', it is the landing site for ''Gagarin'', the lander.

Origin

Dao Vallis begins near a large volcano, Hadriacus Mons, so it is thought to have received water when hot magma melted huge amounts of ice in the frozen ground. Much of this water may have been released in very large "outburst floods". The partially circular depressions on the left side of the channel in the image below suggests that groundwater sapping also contributed water more gradually.Dao Vallis (Released 7 August 2002)
/ref> Image:Dao Vallis.JPG, Section of Dao Vallis, as seen by

THEMIS In Greek mythology and religion, Themis (; ) is the goddess and personification of justice, divine order, law, and custom. She is one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus, and the second wife of Zeus. She is associated with oracles a ...

. Click on image to see relationship of Dao Vallis to other nearby features.

References

External links

Google Mars map centred on Dao Vallis
Valleys and canyons on Mars Hellas quadrangle {{mars-stub

Origin

See also

References

External links