Ravi Vallis

SHORT, FAST RUN. Around 200 kilometers long, Ravi Vallis was born in a flood of water from Aromatum Chaos (left). The racing waters sliced a pathway across Xanthe Terra, spawned at least two small chaos regions in the channel (center), and then hurtled over the plateau edge to disappear into another chaos region (right foreground). In the distance at left lies Orson Welles Crater and the meandering path of Shalbatana Vallis, a much longer outflow channel perhaps related hydrologically to Ravi. This view looks northwest from an altitude of about 120 kilometers (75 miles); vertical exaggeration 1.5x. (A 6.1 MB version of the image is available.) Image credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University, R. Luk.

To explore the Ravi/Aromatum system further, see A Flash In the Valley.