What is the Steepest Cliff in the Solar System?
The steepest cliff in the solar system is Verona Rupes, on Miranda, a moon of the outer planet Uranus. Verona Rupes is a straight 12 mile (20 km) drop. For comparison, the Grand Canyon is a 1 mile cliff and Mt. Everest is five miles high. In astrogeology, a “rupes” is a long line of mountainous cliffs. Verona Rupes is a cliff named after Verona in Italy. It was named this because Verona is the setting of Shakespeare’s play Romeo & Juliet, and moons and features in the Uranian system are traditionally named after things in Shakespearean plays. Sometimes the height of Verona Rupes is incorrectly stated as 5 km (3 miles), though its height is obviously greater than this, as a cursory look at a picture of the moon itself shows. The cliff is even more intimidating in the context of the small moon on which it is found: Miranda is only 400 km (250 mi) in diameter. Some simple arithmetic then shows that Verona Rupes is a cliff so deep it cuts 4% of the way into the moon’s surface. A similar cl
The steepest cliff in the solar system is Verona Rupes, on Miranda, a moon of the outer planet Uranus. Verona Rupes is a straight 12 mile (20 km) drop. For comparison, the Grand Canyon is a 1 mile cliff and Mt. Everest is five miles high. In astrogeology, a “rupes†is a long line of mountainous cliffs. Verona Rupes is a cliff named after Verona in Italy. It was named this because Verona is the setting of Shakespeare’s play Romeo & Juliet, and moons and features in the Uranian system are traditionally named after things in Shakespearean plays. Sometimes the height of Verona Rupes is incorrectly stated as 5 km (3 miles), though its height is obviously greater than this, as a cursory look at a picture of the moon itself shows. The cliff is even more intimidating in the context of the small moon on which it is found: Miranda is only 400 km (250 mi) in diameter. Some simple arithmetic then shows that Verona Rupes is a cliff so deep it cuts 4% of the way into the moon’s surface. A sim
