PIA01356: Ariel's Transecting Valleys
 Target Name:  Ariel
 Is a satellite of:  Uranus
 Mission:  Voyager
 Spacecraft:  Voyager 2
 Instrument:  VG ISS - Narrow Angle
 Product Size:  512 x 512 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Producer ID:  P29518
 Addition Date:  1998-12-05
 Primary Data Set:  Voyager EDRs
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA01356.tif (140.5 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA01356.jpg (27.36 kB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

This highest-resolution Voyager 2 view of Ariel's terminator shows a complex array of transecting valleys with super-imposed impact craters. Voyager obtained this clear-filter, narrow-angle view from a distance of 130,000 kilometers (80,000 miles) and with a resolution of about 2.4 km (1.5 mi). Particularly striking to Voyager scientists is the fact that the faults that bound the linear valleys are not visible where they transect one another across the valleys. Apparently these valleys were filled with deposits sometime after they were formed by tectonic processes, leaving them flat and smooth. Sinuous rilles (trenches) later formed, probably by some flow process. Some type of fluid flow may well have been involved in their evolution. The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL

Image Addition Date:
1998-12-05