A Traveler's Guide to Mars

In this extraordinary Baedeker—accessible, up-to-date, and prodigiously illustrated with photographs from Mariner 9, Viking, Pathfinder, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the ongoing mars Global Surveyor spacecraft—visitors will encounter: Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, rising three times as high as Mount Everest and covering an area the size of Missouri Tharsis Planitia, the "high plains of Mars," with plains rising 29,000 feet—wide enough to cover Europe. Valles Marineris, an equatorial canyon so vast that America's Grand Canyon would be a mere tributary. Plus: the "face" on Mars, the White Rock, the "Canals" of Xanthe—and the first possible evidence of an ancient Martian life-form.

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