Verona Rupes: Tallest Known Cliff in the Solar System

Astronomy Picture of the Day · 2007-07-23 · NASA (public domain)

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Verona Rupes: Tallest Known Cliff in the Solar System — APOD for 2007-07-23

Could you survive a jump off the tallest cliff in the Solar System? Quite possibly. Verona Rupes on Uranus ' moon Miranda is estimated to be 20 kilometers deep -- ten times the depth of the Earth's Grand Canyon . Given Miranda 's low gravity, it would take about 12 minutes for a thrill-seeking adventurer to fall from the top, reaching the bottom at the speed of a racecar -- about 200 kilometers per hour. Even so, the fall might be survivable given proper airbag protection. The above image of Verona Rupes was captured by the passing Voyager 2 robotic spacecraft in 1986. How the giant cliff was created remains unknown, but is possibly related to a large impact or tectonic surface motion.

Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2007-07-23 — image & explanation courtesy of NASA (public domain), mirrored at Tukuk-OS for reading and search convenience.

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