Ancient lava flows down the flanks of the solar system’s largest volcano
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 2, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be very old and eroded lava on the northeast flanks of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano on Mars as well as the entire solar system. About 600 miles across, from the edge to its peak, Olympus rises about 54,000 feet, with an actual height relative to Mars’ “sea level” of just under 70,000 feet, more than twice as high as Mount Everest on Earth.
The white arrow show the downward grade. Several different flows can be seen throughout the picture, some confined to a central channel with smooth aprons of overflows on either side. Others are more broken and less coherent, and suggest that either the flows were inherently different, or are much older and have deteriorated with time.
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 2, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be very old and eroded lava on the northeast flanks of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano on Mars as well as the entire solar system. About 600 miles across, from the edge to its peak, Olympus rises about 54,000 feet, with an actual height relative to Mars’ “sea level” of just under 70,000 feet, more than twice as high as Mount Everest on Earth.
The white arrow show the downward grade. Several different flows can be seen throughout the picture, some confined to a central channel with smooth aprons of overflows on either side. Others are more broken and less coherent, and suggest that either the flows were inherently different, or are much older and have deteriorated with time.
» Read more