Space: Who Knew, #18

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Olympus Mons & Valles Marineris

Found this article today on Wired and decided that I'd gather some stats on the largest mountain and longest canyon (that we currently know of) in the solar system, which both happen to lie on the surface of a planet roughly half the size of Earth: Mars.


Olympus Mons
Explore it on Google Maps

This shield volcano towers roughly 88,550 feet above the surface of the red planet. Its base is about 340 miles wide and the caldera at the top is about 53 miles long and 35 miles wide. Though volcanic activity has thought to have ceased 10-20 million years ago (which is actually not that long ago in geologic standards), scientists believe that Mount Olympus could still be hot on the inside. Check out the first article above for more details on that.

So that's pretty huge... In its wiki article, its mentioned that if you were standing on the surface of Mars, you'd be unable to make out the top of the mountain, even from great distances.

Lets compare Olympus Mons to the tallest mountain on Earth, Mount Everest...

Olympus Mons

• 88,550 feet tall
• 340 miles wide at its base
• slope is at its highest 5 degrees (pretty easy to climb, albeit a long trip)

Mount Everest

• 29,029 feet tall
• I couldn't find any info on its base width on the wiki article, but I did some digging. This pic is labeled 44 km across (or 27 miles wide), and the mountain seems to fit clearly in the center. So Olympus Mons is about 12.5 times larger at its base, in fact, the entirety of Mount Everest could rest on top of the caldera atop Olympus Mons.
• Couldn't really find any info on its slope
  

If we turn our attention a little to the east, we'll find the Valles Marineris.


Valles Marineris
Explore it on Google Maps

This gigantic canyon spans nearly 20 percent of the red planet, along its equator just east of the Tharsis region. Its nearly 2,500 miles long, which is only 500 miles shy of the width of the United States.

At its deepest, the trench dips nearly 4 and a half miles, and its mean width is around 120 miles. From the wiki article, it talks about the crack forming as a result of cooling in the planets crust.

Lets compare it to the Grand Canyon...

Valles Marineris

• 2,500 miles long
  
• 120 miles wide
• 4.5 miles deep
  

Grand Canyon

• 227 miles long
  
• 4-18 mile width
• About 6,000 feet, or just over one mile deep
  

Just imagine getting lost in there....

Who knew???