Which body has the deepest canyons? I plan on orbiting through it!

[It'snorocketscience]

What planet/moon has the deepest canyons? I'd prefer a planet with no atmosphere, so I can do orbital flybys at very low altitude. Obviously I'd prefer a planet without an atmosphere.

I'm thinking Dres' canyon might be an easy place to start, but what about Moho, Eeloo, or Jool's moons? Tylo's strong gravity would make for a very fast white-knuckle flyby, but does it have any canyons?

[Natokerbal]

Tylo is kinda flat compared to other bodies.

Also if ur orbiting through a canyon make sure it's VERY eliptical.

The Mnn has a canyon near the equator but it's not straight like Dres.

[Snark]

22 hours ago, It'snorocketscience said:

What planet/moon has the deepest canyons? I'd prefer a planet with no atmosphere, so I can do orbital flybys at very low altitude. Obviously I'd prefer a planet without an atmosphere.

I'm thinking Dres' canyon might be an easy place to start, but what about Moho, Eeloo, or Jool's moons? Tylo's strong gravity would make for a very fast white-knuckle flyby, but does it have any canyons?

The Mun is actually a pretty good place for canyon barnstorming. It has a fairly deep canyon that meets two very important requirements:

First, it's right plumb spang on the equator. This is important because all celestial bodies rotate. For any surface feature that's located away from the equator, you have to have an inclined orbit to do a flyover, and the surface feature will quickly rotate out from under your orbital track.

Second, the high ramparts on either side of the canyon also happen to be the highest points on the Mun's equator. This means you can set up a low circular orbit that will get you a close pass over the canyon every time, but you won't have to worry about smacking into the surface somewhere else.

[It'snorocketscience]

35 minutes ago, Snark said:

The Mun is actually a pretty good place for canyon barnstorming. It has a fairly deep canyon that meets two very important requirements:

First, it's right plumb spang on the equator. This is important because all celestial bodies rotate. For any surface feature that's located away from the equator, you have to have an inclined orbit to do a flyover, and the surface feature will quickly rotate out from under your orbital track.

[...]

Yeah, the mun's equator is pretty good, although Bob did some math recently -  inclined canyons aren't an issue . Obviously many bodies like the Mun don't have a large enough SOI to allow a synchronous orbit, but I can set things up so that after 8 orbits (for example) I'll be over the same canyon. Don't forget to raise your periapsis after the canyon pass lol.

To be specific, make the time it takes to orbit (the game calculates it for you) divide nicely into the time it takes for the area (a canyon) to rotate once. The only tricky part is figuring out how long it takes for the planet to rotate at higher latitudes.

I used a few sites to help me calculate this, if anyone's interested, let me know.

Edited August 26, 2019 by It'snorocketscience

[Xurkitree]

I think there's an synchronous/semi-synchronous orbit around Dres that allows one to pass through the Dres Canyon at periapsis every time.

[cantab]

Technically the deepest might be on Kerbin, but the atmosphere is in the way of orbiting through that. Otherwise in stock I think the only two are Mun and Dres.

[Fraston]

Dres has the deepest, straightest canyon , at least that fits your parameters.