Is it a crater?

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Not Challenger Deep.

Crater? Hmmm, that would give away a lot, wouldn't it? I duly note, however, that at least most craters aren't "all" about being below, as most of them have raised edges.

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Shoemaker crater?

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Curt Renz - "Centaur"
For monthly astronomical calendar visit:
www.CurtRenz.com/astronomical.html

Valhalla Impact Basin on Callisto?

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No to both. The very, very general direction of Eroica's answer is approaching the target.

Read the riddle again - Who could have wanted to "reach" Challenger, or Shoemaker. The smart-alec wanted to get to a place (on Earth) for unfinished business, and that place is what our structure is named after. The place the smart-alec wanted to get to is "all about being above", while the place you are looking for "all about being below".

Does that make the question clearer?

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So it's a basin or valley?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

Yes.

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Is smart-alec just a description or is the name alec or a form thereof important?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin

"Ignorance convinces" -- slang's dad

No, smart-alec is just how I (and, in other words, his contemporaries) describe him.

Hint: Eroica's "very general" direction was right in so far as he was taking a mythological aim.

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Daedalus and Icarus come to mind but don't 'fit the profile', I think. Others might have had unfinished business with the gods, thus olympus, but Olympus Mons isn't "all about being below", nor is it a basin or valley. Hmmm.

*heads off to read more mythology*

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin

"Ignorance convinces" -- slang's dad

Keep up the good work, and good luck for your travels

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Travels huh? I was already thinking classical heros.. Jason, Odysseus. Many have some unfinished business. Still, fail to see the smart-alec and "all about being above". *keeps reading snippets*

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin

"Ignorance convinces" -- slang's dad

Actually it was Shoemaker-Levy 9

Discovered by Gene and Caroline Shoemaker and David Levy, who worked the Palomar 18 inch Schmidt at the time.

I once worked with a fellow who was on another team that used the same instrument, but missed the comet by a day or so...

Matthew Ota

"All about being above/below" - that would be with respect to their environment/surroundings, wouldn't it?

And I luurve mythology.

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

OK, hint time. The smart-alec is famous both for his travels and his smart-alec-ness.

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

No takers? I had hoped for some bludgeoning, George

To sum things up as they are known so far:

You are looking for a feature in the Solar system. It is "all about being below its surroundings", so some form of depression; it named after somthing "all about being above its surroundings", so some kind of elevated feature.

A mythological figure had a strong incentive to get to this place (the elveated feature) for unfinished business. That I described the figure as a smart-alec hints at two facts: He is smart, and he is not necessarily loved for it, otherwise I wouldn't have used the slightly derogatory term. In fact, some people hated him for his smug cleverness, but all respected him. And - hint hint - he was, in the end, a very successful man. We also - hint, hint - heard the word "travel" in connection with him.

I think this is not unsolvable, frankly. I'll add more hints as time progresses (hopefully, it won't for very long).

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Ithaca Chasma on Tethys?

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Now wasn't that easy?

Congratulations, Eroica, and on toyou.

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Hubble constant and cosmological constant?

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Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

Hubble constant and curvature ("deceleration parameter")?

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.