If you’ve ever wanted to get lost on Mars, now’s your chance: You can fly over a maze-like canyon on the Red Planet in a stunning new video from the European Space Agency (ESA).
“Central to the tour is a 1300 km [808-mile]-long outflow channel called Shalbatana Vallis,” they explained. “It cascades down from the highland region of Xanthe Terra to the smoother lowlands of Chryse Planitia. Billions of years ago, water surged through this channel, creating many of the features we see today. The tour culminates in a spectacular view of a 100 km [62-mile]-wide impact crater, smashed out of Mars’s surface when it collided with a space rock.”
Xanthe Terra was the name the International Astronomical Union gave to this region in 1979, following high-resolution mapping of Mars by spacecraft of that era. The name means something like “golden-yellow land,” according to DLR, the German space agency, which funded the camera equipment.
Keen-eyed video viewers will see the flight cross the “Martian dichotomy boundary,” where the craters of the southern highlands gradually smooth into flatter plains in the northern lowlands, DLR stated in a separate statement. Researchers are still not sure why this dichotomy exists.
The video also features outflow channels that “are wide, deeply incised valley structures that likely formed in Mars’ geological past during catastrophic flood events involving enormous quantities of water,” DLR officials said. This carving may have happened as volcanoes melted underground ice deposits.
The Mars Express camera scours Mars’ geology as part of the larger mission’s search for life, DLR officials added the statement.
Mars Express has been at the Red Planet since 2003, for what was supposed to be a two-year mission. The spacecraft is still healthy after more than 20 years of service, and it has received multiple mission extensions based on its scientific return.
“While it may be feeling its age, it continues to lift the lid on the Red Planet, with implications for our understanding of our own home,” ESA officials wrote of the long-running mission in 2023.