Olympus Mons

The Olympus Mons (Latin for " Mount Olympus ", named after the Greek Mount Olympus, home of the ancient Greek gods ) is a volcano in the Tharsis region on the planet Mars. With over 22 km peak altitude above mean planetary level and 26 km above the surrounding plains and a diameter of nearly 600 km, it is the highest and largest known mountain in the Solar System. However, a similar amount also includes the central peak in the crater Rheasilvia on the asteroid Vesta.

It is not known whether the Olympus Mons expired or is active.

Olympus Mons was formerly known as Nix Olympica (Latin nix "snow" ). This Albedobezeichnung came from Giovanni Schiaparelli, who discovered it on November 10 in 1879 and thought he saw snow.

Description

The volcano is one because of its shape to the so-called shield volcanoes. Although this volcano type has a relatively low slope and is therefore relatively far more in width than in height, but reaches particularly large proportions. On Earth, the Hawaiian Islands, for example, emerged from this volcano type. Mars has, unlike the Earth, no plate tectonics, which itself could make no volcanoes along the plate columns. Therefore, the lava could reach enough strength in only one region of the planet to break through the crust and a few, but mighty volcanoes produce. Olympus Mons also only could, therefore, be so great because the pull is less on Mars than on Earth. If this were not the case, would the mountain - crushed by its own weight - " slump ".

The Olympus Mons could have broken geologically short time ago; the drawn by researchers lava flows, whose age is estimated at about two million years.

Olympus Mons is more than twenty times as wide as high. Its slopes are up to six miles high in some places, in other places flat. This is due to lava flows, which were released in the formation of the volcano, into existence.

The summit caldera of Olympus Mons has a width of up to 90 km and is located with its bottom part more than 3 km deeper than the edge.

Three-dimensional profile

Orbitals recording of the Olympus Mons