Olympus Mons
| Volcano on mars | ||
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| Olympus Mons | ||
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| position | 18 ° N , 134 ° W | |
| expansion | 600 km | |
| height | 26,400 m | |
The Olympus Mons ( Latin for Mount Olympus ), formerly Nix Olympica is a volcano on the edge of the Tharsis region on the planet Mars . It has a summit height of over 22 km above the mean planetary level and 26 km above the surrounding lowlands and a diameter of almost 600 km.
Olympus Mons is about two and a half times the size of Mount Everest , measured above sea level ; it is thus the largest volcano in the solar system , the highest planetary mountain and the second highest mountain compared to the central mountain in the crater Rheasilvia on the asteroid Vesta . It is the youngest of the great volcanoes on Mars that formed during the Hesperian period of Mars; it is not known whether Olympus Mons is already extinct or still active.
description
Because of its shape, Olympus Mons is one of the so-called shield volcanoes . This type of volcano has a relatively low incline and is therefore relatively much wider than it is in height, but it reaches particularly large dimensions. On Earth , for example, the Hawaiian archipelago emerged from this type of volcano. Unlike Earth, Mars has no plate tectonics , which means that no volcanoes could form along the fissures. Therefore, the lava could only reach enough strength in one region of the planet to break through the crust and produce a few but huge volcanoes. Olympus Mons could only get so big because the gravitational pull on Mars is less than on Earth. If this were not the case, the mountain would "collapse" - crushed by its own weight.
The Olympus Mons could have erupted a short time ago geologically; This is what researchers conclude from lava flows, which are estimated to be around two million years old.
Olympus Mons is more than twenty times as wide as it is high. Its slopes are up to six kilometers high in some places and flat in other places. This is due to the lava flows that were released when the volcano was formed.
The summit caldera of Olympus Mons has a width of up to 90 km and its bottom is sometimes more than 3 km lower than the edge. It originated between 380 and 140 million years ago.
Two impact craters on Olympus Mons have been given tentative names by the International Astronomical Union . These are the Karzok crater with a diameter of 15.6 km and the Pangboche crater with a diameter of 10.4 km. The craters are two of several source areas for Shergottite , the most common class of Martian meteorites (SNC meteorites).
Early observations and naming
On November 10, 1879, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835–1910) discovered a mountain on the planet Mars and believed to see snow on it. Therefore he gave it the albedo name Nix Olympica (Latin nix, snow '; for Olympic snow ).
Astronomer Patrick Moore noted that Schiaparelli “found that Nodus Gordis and Nix Olympica are almost the only surface features” that can also be seen during dust storms; he "correctly concluded that they must be correspondingly high". Based on this, it was possible for observers to use telescopes to observe the volcanoes of the Tharsis region as early as the 19th century, as these are visible from Earth due to their height even during persistent dust storms on Mars.
In 1971, the Mariner 9 spacecraft entered orbit around Mars during a global dust storm. The first objects that became visible as the dust began to settle were the peaks of the Tharsis volcanoes. Observations by Mariner 9 also confirmed that it was not just a mountain, but rather a (probably extinct) shield volcano due to its shape.
When naming the volcano , the astronomers based themselves on Schiaparelli's albedo name Nix Olympica and finally named the volcano Olympus Mons, after the Greek mountain Olympus , the seat of the ancient Greek gods .
Location and environmental features
Olympus Mons is located in the western hemisphere between the eastern edge of Amazonis Planitia (Gradfeld MC-8 ) and the northwestern edge of the Tharsis region (Gradfeld MC-9 ). It is located approximately 1,200 km northwest of the other three major Martian shield volcanoes that make up the Tharsis Montes group: Arsia Mons , Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons . The Tharsis Montes are slightly smaller than the Olympus Mons.
A wide ring-shaped ditch surrounds Olympus Mons; it is believed that it was created by the immense weight of the volcano acting on the Martian crust. The depth of the trench is greater on the northwest side than on the southeast side.
Olympus Mons is surrounded by a region of undulating terrain known as Olympus Mons Aureole, which is made up of several large overlapping layers. To the northwest of the volcano, the aureole (corona) extends over 750 km and is known as Lycus Sulci ( 24 ° 36 ′ 0 ″ N , 141 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ W ). In the east of Olympus Mons it is partially covered by lava flows and has different names, such as Gigas Sulci . The origin of the aureole remains controversial; they probably resulted from massive landslides or gravitational thrusts that broke away from the edge of the sign of Olympus Mons.
Olympus Mons, taken during the Viking mission
Three-dimensional profile
Orbital image of Olympus Mons
The complex caldera of Olympus Mons
Olympus Rupes , the northern part of Olympus Mons
literature
- EM Fischer, CM Pieters: The continuum slope of Mars: Bi-directional reflectance investigations and applications to Olympus Mons. In: Icarus. Volume 102, 1993, pp. 185-202, bibcode : 1993Icar..102..185F .
- J. Helgason: Formation of Olympus Mons and the aureole-escarpment problem on Mars. In: Geology. Volume 27, 1999, pp. 231-234.
Web links
- Mars volcanoes: Olympus Mons could still be active; Spiegel Online November 24, 2004
- DLR: Olympus Mons February 11, 2004
- DLR: The six-kilometer-high eastern escarpment of the Olympus Mons volcano March 3, 2006
- DLR: Landslides and lava flows on Olympus Mons May 17, 2013
- DLR: Lava flows at the foot of the volcanic giant July 5, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Olympus Mons: Spectacular series of images from the largest volcano in our solar system
- ↑ a b c The Planets A visual journey through our solar system . Dorling Kindersley, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-8310-2830-6 .
- ↑ Stars and Space: The Red Planet in 3D , February 7, 2008
- ^ New names on Olympus Mons . USGS. Retrieved July 11, 2006.
- ^ Frankel, CS (2005). Worlds on Fire: Volcanoes on the Earth, the Moon, Mars, Venus and Io; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, p. 160. ISBN 978-0-521-80393-9 .
- ↑ Olympus Mons in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS
- ^ Moore, Patrick: Guide to Mars . New York 1977. p. 120.
- ↑ Cattermole, Peter John: Mars: The Mystery Unfolds . Oxford University Press, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-19-521726-1 , pp. 186 .