Frento Vallis
What Frento Vallis is
Frento Vallis is a vallis — a valley — on Mars, 251 km across, centred at 50.0° S, 14.8° W in the Argyre quadrangle. It is the 354th largest named feature on Mars and the 64th largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Classical name for river in Italy. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1985, under the theme it applies to every vallis on Mars. Of the 157 features of this class catalogued on Mars, the naming categories run Italy (14), France (12), Greek (10), United States (9).
What it would take to settle Frento Vallis
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 50.0° S, 14.8° W.
What this spot has going for it is known ground — 2,883 km from Opportunity (2004). What works against it is ground — broken ground — hard to reach, and worth reaching for the shelter and the exposed strata.
Computed from Frento Vallis'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 vallis features on Mars
All 157 valles on Mars — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.