Messina Chasma

The Voyager 2 image of Titania. Messina Chasma can be seen in the center.

Messina Chasma is the largest canyon on the surface of the Uranian moon Titania and is named after a location in William Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing. The 1492 km long chasma is made of two normal faults running NW–SE, which bound a down-dropped crustal block forming a structure called graben. The canyon 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. Messina Chasma has only a few crater superimposed on it, which also implies it is relatively young structure. The chasma was first imaged by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in January 1986.