The Mars Orbiter is a spacecraft built by the European Space Agency (ESA) that has been flying around Mars for more than two decades. It recently flew more than 25,000 orbits and captured a highly detailed image of volcanoes on the Red Planet.
Mars Orbiter’s spectacular volcano landscape and surprising discovery
As ESA writes, “the spectacular landscape shows volcanoes, valleys, craters, clouds and even Mars’ largest moon Phobos.”
Here’s what you see in the outer space landscape:
– Olympus Mons: The largest bulge in the lower left is Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system. About the same size as Arizona, this volcano reaches a height of 25 kilometers (Mount Everest is 5.5 miles high).
– The volcanic triad: To the right of Olympus Mons are three similarly huge volcanoes called Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons and Arsia Mons. These are shield volcanoes, which tend not to be explosive. Instead, lava flows down their spouting paths, building up layers over time and forming a gentle slope. As a result, they form a landform that resembles a shield perched on its back.
– Countless craters: Mars is completely covered with craters. The Red Planet is close to the solar system asteroid belt, a region filled with millions of asteroids. When they hit Mars, these space rocks are less likely to heat up and break apart, as the Martian atmosphere is only 1% as dense as Earth’s atmosphere. Moreover, Mars is not completely geologically dead – Martian earthquakes occur there frequently – but there is not enough geological activity and volcanism to wash out or cover new craters (like on Earth).
– Martian clouds: At the top and bottom of the image, above and below both poles, you can see large cloud cover. On Mars, clouds are made of water ice and carbon dioxide ice.
– Moon Phobos: You can see Phobos, the dark, misshapen moon of Mars, hovering above the Red Planet. Relatively small and not very heavy, it is only 27 kilometers long at its longest side. “It’s not heavy enough to make Phobos spherical,” explains the European Space Agency. Moreover, it has been repeatedly hit by powerful space rocks. “Phobos was almost torn apart by a giant impactor and is pockmarked by thousands of meteorite impacts,” NASA said.
This impressive Martian landscape illuminates the unique geography of the Red Planet and our journey to discover the mysteries deep within our universe.
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