| Messina Chasmata | |
| Type: | Chasm system |
| Location: | Titania |
| Length: | ~1492km (927miles) |
| Coordinates: | -33.3°N -25°W |
| Coordinates Footnotes: | [1] |
| Discoverer: | Voyager 2 |
| Naming: | Official |
The Messina Chasmata are 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.[1] The 1492km (927miles)- 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 have only a few superimposed craters, which also implies being relatively young. The feature was first imaged by Voyager 2 in January 1986.