Ausonia Mensa is a mensa in the

Hellas quadrangle The Hellas quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Hellas quadrangle is also referred to as MC-28 (Mars Chart-28). The Hellas quadrangle c ...

of Mars, located at 30.3° S and 262.3° W. It is across and was named after an

albedo Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of sunlight, solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body ...

feature name. The term "mensa" is used for a flat-topped prominence with cliff-like edges. Ausonia Mensa has many small channels. Some features look like alluvial fans. These channels add to the mass of evidence that water once flowed on Mars. Images of curved channels have been seen in images from Mars spacecraft dating back to the early 1970s with the

Mariner 9 Mariner 9 (Mariner Mars '71 / Mariner-I) was a robotic spacecraft that contributed greatly to the exploration of Mars and was part of the NASA Mariner program. Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971 from LC-36B at Cape Canaveral Air ...

orbiter.Komar, P. 1979. "Comparisons of the hydraulics of water flows in Martian outflow channels with flows of similar scale on Earth". ''Icarus'' 37, 156–181. Image:25897ausoniachannel.jpg, Channel in Ausonia Mensa, as seen by HiRISE under HiWish program

References

Hellas quadrangle Mensae on Mars {{Mars-stub

See also

References