Messina Chasmata
Chasm system on Titania

The Messina Chasmata /mɛˈsiːnə ˈkæzmətə/ is the largest canyon or system of canyons on the surface of the Uranian moon Titania, named after a location in William Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing. The 1,492 km (927 mi) long feature includes two normal faults running NW-SE, which bound a down-dropped crustal block forming a structure called a graben. The graben cuts impact craters, which probably means that it was formed at a relatively late stage of the moon's evolution, when the interior of Titania expanded and its ice crust cracked as a result. The Messina Chasmata has only a few superimposed craters, which also implies being relatively young. The feature was first imaged by Voyager 2 in January 1986.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Messina Chasmata”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- PIA00039 Titania.jpg by NASA/JPL, Public domain
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