A
swath of grooved terrain named Erech Sulcus cuts north-south across the
ancient dark terrain of Marius Regio. The multiple scales of ubiquitous
grooves in Erech Sulcus probably formed when tectonic forces pulled apart
the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. Similar sets of faults occur
in rift zones on Earth, as in eastern Africa. The southern edge of Erech
Sulcus is truncated by the smoother bright terrain of Sippar Sulcus, trending
roughly east-west. The relatively smooth appearance of Sippar Sulcus hints
that icy volcanism once paved over the area. |
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North
is to the top of the picture and the sun illuminates the surface from the
right. The mosaic, centered at 16 degrees south latitude and 177 degrees
longitude, covers an area approximately 950 by 560 kilometers. The resolution
is 143 meters per picture element. The images were taken on May 7, 1997
at 15 hours, 24 minutes, 39 seconds Universal Time at a range of 14,263
kilometers by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft. |
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