Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Martian volcano Olympus Mons seen from the Lycus Sulci

The Martian volcano Olympus Mons seen from the Lycus Sulci
Click on the image to enlarge

This is an awesome rendering of the volcano Olympus Mons seen from the Lycus Sulci. This image was made mainly with the digital elevation models of the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) and rendered with 3DEM data converter and Terragen 2 software.
Olympus Mons is a volcanic mountain on Mars. It is a little under three times as tall as Mount Everest and is the tallest known volcano in the Solar System. Olympus Mons is the youngest of the large volcanoes on Mars, having formed during Mars' Amazonian Period. Olympus Mons is a shield volcano, similar in morphology to the large volcanoes making up the Hawaiian Islands. The volcano is about 600 km wide and stands nearly 22 km above the surrounding plains - a little over twice the height of Mauna Kea as measured from its base on the Pacific ocean floor! The summit of the mountain has six nested calderas (collapse craters) forming an irregular depression 72 x 91 km across and up to 3.2 km deep. The volcano's outer edge consists of an escarpment, or cliff, up to 8 km tall, a feature unique among the shield volcanoes of Mars. Olympus Mons covers an area approximately the size of Arizona.
Credit: Kees Veenenbos

2 comment(s):

Paul Spresser (Flash) said...

What a beautiful planet

silvia said...

a natural martian vent beautiful and majestic impressive.

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