Hellas Planitia

23000

Hellas Planitia, the Hellas impact basin, the largest impact crater on Mars and on the South Pole - Aitken basin on Earth's Moon probably the second largest in our solar system. He was to Hellas, the proper name for Greece, named.

Description

The Mars crater located on the southern hemisphere of the planet. He has an elliptical shape with a size of about 2200 km x 1600 km and, with a depth of up to 9 km, the deepest region on Mars dar. To the crater runs a ring of surrounding rolled material of about 2 km altitude.

Northeast of Hellas Planitia is the volcano Hadriacus Mons. Hadriaca Patera, the 66 km wide caldera of the volcano, is located at 30 ° 12 ' S, 92 ° 47' Omar - 30.292.79. On the southern slope of the volcano, the river valley of the 794 km long Dao Vallis (37 ° 37 ' S, 88 ° 53' Omar - 37.6188.89 ) begins and extends to the eastern base of the Martian crater. The Dao Vallis is 360 km long Niger Vallis (34 ° 58 ' S, 92 ° 34' Omar - 34.9692.57 ), beginning on the southeastern flank of the volcano extended. East of Hellas Planitia begins 527 km long river valley Harmakhis Vallis (40 ° 59 ' S, 90 ° 4' Omar - 40.9890.06 ), which also extends to the eastern base of the Martian crater.

Development

Hellas Planitia probably originated about 3.9 billion years ago to 3.5, in the Noachian period, by the impact of a large asteroid kilometer.