A Snaking Scar Across Mars: The Mystery of Aganippe Fossa
By European Space Agency (ESA)July 5, 2024
This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows Aganippe Fossa, a fascinating groove at the foot of Mars’s colossal Arsia Mons volcano. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
A fascinating feature takes center stage in this new image from ESA’s Mars Express: a dark, uneven scar slicing through marbled ground at the foot of a giant volcano.
This scar, known as Aganippe Fossa, is a patchy, roughly 600-km-long feature known as a ‘graben’: a ditch-like groove with steep walls on either side.
Aganippe Fossa cuts across the lower flank of one of Mars’s largest volcanoes, Arsia Mons. Mars Express regularly observes Arsia Mons and its nearby companions in the region of Tharsis, where several of Mars’s behemoth volcanoes are found. This includes Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the Solar System (visible in the context map associated with this new image, as is Arsia Mons).
Arsia Mons itself measures 435 km in diameter and rises more than 9 km above the surrounding plains. For context, the highest dormant volcano on Earth, Ojos del Salado on the Argentina-Chile border, tops out at under 7 km.
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Ojos del Salado volcano
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