Alba Fossae
What Alba Fossae is
Alba Fossae is a fossa — a long, narrow depression — on Mars, 2,072 km across, centred at 49.4° N, 106.8° W in the Arcadia quadrangle. It is the 24th largest named feature on Mars and the 5th largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Classical albedo name. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1973, under the theme it applies to every fossa on Mars. Of the 61 features of this class catalogued on Mars, the naming categories run Greek (32), Latin (22), Egypt (2), China (2).
What it would take to settle Alba Fossae
Mars scores 26.6 as a world. That number is the same for every square metre of it — but sunlight, water, radiation and the ground under your feet are not. This is the same question asked at 49.4° N, 106.8° W.
What this spot has going for it is known ground — 1,244 km from Phoenix (2008). What works against it is ground — broken ground — hard to reach, and worth reaching for the shelter and the exposed strata.
Computed from Alba Fossae's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 74% of the model's weight had a basis here, and 2 axes were dropped as not applicable to Mars (radiation geometry, earth link). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Mars and are already counted in the world's own index, not again here.
What this cannot see: elevation. Slope, local shadowing and the polar “peaks of eternal light” — ridge tops near the poles of a barely tilted world that catch sun almost continuously while a crater floor kilometres away never does — need a terrain model this does not have. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually why.
What is next to it
The largest fossa features on Mars
All 61 fossae on Mars — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.