Did you know that the highest peak on Earth is Mount Everest, located in the Himalayas, the ultimate dream for mountaineers and explorers? Its height is 8848 meters, which is equivalent to 10 Eiffel towers superimposed! Its climate is extremely harsh, with snow and wind, and thin oxygen, and only a few people have been able to make it to the top. Known as the roof of the world, it is the closest place on Earth to the sky.
However, there is a mountain on Mars that is more than twice as tall as Mount Everest! This mountain is Mount Olympus, the highest volcano in the solar system and the largest. Its height is 21,171 meters, while Mount Everest is only 8,848 meters. This means that Mount Olympus is 2.4 times higher than Mount Everest! What an amazing number! Can you imagine? It's like a giant standing next to a dwarf!
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So, how spectacular is Mount Olympus? Let's take a look at some data.
- Mount Olympus is a shield volcano formed by long-term eruptions of highly mobile basalt lava, resulting in a gentle slope similar to the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii on Earth.
- Mount Olympus has a diameter of about 600 km, which is the size of France or Germany. It occupies about 1% of the surface of Mars.
- The crater of Mount Olympus is about 500 kilometers in diameter, an area the size of Texas or Spain in the United States. It can accommodate all known active craters on Earth.
- Mount Olympus has a height of 21.9 km from base to summit, which is equivalent to the deepest trenches on Earth combined, the Mariana Trench (10.9 km) and Mount Everest (8.8 km).
- The crater of Mount Olympus consists of 6 overlying depressions, which are about 80 km long and 60 km wide, and the crater walls can be up to 3.2 km high.
Aren't you shocked to hear it? Mount Olympus is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular and mysterious volcanoes in the solar system. If we could see it with our own eyes, we might be amazed by its enormity and beauty.
So why can mountains on Mars be so much higher than on Earth? What is the reason behind this? In fact, there are three main reasons:
- The first reason is that Mars has less gravity. Mars has only 11% of Earth's mass and a gravitational acceleration one-third that of Earth. This means that mountains on Mars will not be crushed or plastically rheological due to their own weight and can grow higher. If there is such a low gravity on Earth, then theoretically the peaks on Earth can reach about 38 kilometers. Imagine how spectacular and shocking that would be!
- The second reason is that Mars has no plate tectonics. Most volcanoes on Mars are shield-shaped volcanoes made of basalt, formed primarily by eruptions of highly mobile basalt-like lava. Volcanoes on Earth, on the other hand, form chains of volcanic islands rather than individual peaks due to plate movement. Mars is already a dead star without plate movement, and Mars can continue to erupt in the same place, piling up huge shield volcanoes, such as Mount Olympus. Did you know that Mount Olympus has been out of activity for a long time, it was formed in the early Amazonian period, when there were no dinosaurs on Earth?
- The third reason is the higher viscosity of magma on Mars. The viscosity of the magma mainly depends on the silica content in it, the higher the silica content, the greater the viscosity. The stickier magma creates steeper slope angles, which means higher. Magma on Mars may contain higher levels of silica or other components, making them stickier than magma on Earth. Did you know that magma viscosity can also affect such an extraordinary phenomenon when a volcano erupts? What if only we could hear the earth-shattering sound and the soul-shaking tremor of Mount Olympus erupting!
Okay, that's it for today. If you are interested in Mars or other planets in the solar system, please follow my channel and give me likes and comments! Here is the quirky utopia! Thank you! See you next time!
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