APOD 4.2

Verona Rupes: Tallest Known Cliff in the Solar System (4 April 2011)

This is a picture of Verona Rupes. It is the tallest known cliff in the solar system and it is located on Miranda, Uranus' moon. It is supposed to be 20 km deep which is about 10 times the depth of the Earth's Grand Canyon. Miranda was named after Miranda in Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Miranda actually looks similar to our moon. It is gray and it has all these craters and broken terrain. However, it's surface may be mostly water ice. Despite the depth of this canyon, I was surprised to read that someone could actually jump off of this cliff and survive. Because of it's low gravity, it would take 12 minutes for a person to reach the bottom at the speed of 200 km/hr which is about the speed of a race car, but with the proper airbag protection, a person could actually survive. This picture was taken by the passing Voyager 2 robotic spacecraft in 1986. They do not know what created this cliff but they suspect it's related to a large impact or tectonic surface motion. Reading this gives me an idea of how big this cliff is and how much a difference gravity makes to be able to jump off at 200 km/hr and survive.