Olympus Mons tagged posts

Something slammed into the surface of Mars 1 million years ago, hitting a volcano or lava plain. This impact ejected rocks into space. Fragments of these rocks crossed Earth’s orbit and fell as meteorites. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Houston

Analysis of a Martian meteorite found in Africa in 2012 has uncovered evidence of at least 2 billion years of volcanic activity on Mars. This confirms that some of the longest-lived volcanoes in the solar system may be found on the Red Planet. Shield volcanoes and lava plains formed from lava flowing over long distances, similar to the formation of the Hawaiian Islands. The largest Martian volcano, Olympus Mons, is nearly 17 miles high. That’s almost triple the height of Earth’s tallest volcano, Mauna Kea, at 6.25 miles...

Olympus Mons is the largest volcano on Mars, possibly the largest in the Solar System. It is more than 372.84 miles (600 km) across and towers 16.8 mils (27 km) above the Mars surface level. Credit: Image courtesy of Freie Universitaet Berlin

The research project is based on image data of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) installed on the European Mars Express spacecraft, which has been orbiting the red planet since December 2003. Using the camera images, the scientists in the Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing group generated a mosaic and a terrain model of the Olympus Mons volcano. The image data show that the volcano shield is shaped in the form of arched terraces and the foot of the otherwise very flat volcano drops steeply...