The Red Planet may not be visited by humans for another decade or so, but that doesn’t stop us from learning more about its surface, and the geology of  the surface.

The 20 year-old Mars Express Orbiter, operated by the European Space Agency, recently snapped some amazing images of the surface, that include this 600-km-long (373 miles long) feature known as a ‘graben’: which is a ditch-like groove with steep walls on either side.

Named Aganippe Fossa, the scar cuts across the lower side of one of Mars’s largest volcanoes, Arsia Mons. We can only imagine what it’d look like in person, this massive canyon on a foreign planet.

Seen in three different wavelengths below, the feature is massive, over 1.3 times longer than the Grand Canyon.

Edited by Ben VanderVeen · About Moss & Fog

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Ben VanderVeen is the founder and editor of Moss & Fog, one of the web’s longest-running visual culture destinations. Since 2009, he’s been finding and framing the most beautiful, surprising, and thought-provoking work in art, architecture, design, and nature — reaching over 325,000 readers each month. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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