ESA’s Mars Express reveals the biggest canyon in the Solar System

A European Space Agency mission’s Mars Express has captured rare images from the Valles Marineris, which is ten times longer, twenty times wider, and five times deeper than the Grand Canyon in the US, deep inside the largest known Canyon in the Solar System. The photos were taken in April by the Mars Express’  HRSC (high-resolution stereo camera). The canyon covers 2, 500 miles of Mars’ equator and is four miles deep in some parts. The images also show that there are two trenches that run alongside Valles Marineris also known as Chasma. They have been named Tithonium Chasma and Ius Chasma and they are 500 miles long – double the length of Earth’s Grand Canyon. Scientists now believe that, unlike canyons on Earth that are often created by water flow over millions of years, this one was almost certainly caused by volcanos and known as Tectonic activity, and created over a billion years ago. According to ESA, probably when Mars was wetter, warmer, and possibly more suitable for life, and currently looking for possible signs of past life on Mars on a part of the planet called Jezero Crater. Mars Express has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2003, studying its atmosphere surface and what lies beneath.