Nilus Dorsa
What Nilus Dorsa is
Nilus Dorsa is a dorsum — a ridge — on Mars, 293 km across, centred at 20.7° N, 79.1° W in the Lunae Palus quadrangle. It is the 325th largest named feature on Mars and the 21st largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Named for albedo feature at 20N, 65W. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1985, under the theme it applies to every dorsum on Mars. Of the 36 features of this class catalogued on Mars, the naming categories run Greek (20), Latin (13), Egypt (1), Syria (1).
What it would take to settle Nilus Dorsa
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 20.7° N, 79.1° W.
What this spot has going for it is sunlight — 94% of the sunlight the sunniest latitude on Mars gets. What works against it is water — outside the ice-bearing latitudes.
Computed from Nilus Dorsa'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 dorsum features on Mars
All 36 dorsa on Mars — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.