How old is olympus mons

It is the largest volcano in the solar system at 72, ft tall two and a half times the height of Mount Everest and miles wide nearly the size of the state of Arizona. Shield volcanoes like Olympus Mons are formed as lava slowly flows out of the ground and spreads out, creating a low, squat appearance.

Scientists posit that Olympus Mons is still a fairly young volcano from a geologic standpoint, estimating it to be only a few million years old. This means that Olympus Mons, which is already the size of France, could get even bigger as fresh lava flows to the surface and cools. Mars will also be at its closest point to Earth in its orbit during opposition, making it appear bigger and brighter in the sky.

Members Educators Researchers. Olympus Mons is a shield volcano, which means it oozes huge amounts of lava, rather than simply blowing its top in a catastrophic eruption. This lets them grow slowly over time. Mars, on the other hand, is too small for plate tectonics. In a Nature Communications paper published in , astronomers studied a family of meteorites called nakhlites, which were all flung from Mars when an asteroid struck a volcano on the Red Planet some 11 million years ago.

By studying Olympus Mons and other volcanoes on Mars, scientists can help unravel clues to the Red Planet's climate history, too. The meteorites born from the volcano actually show signs of minerals that form as water passes through rock, which suggests water was flowing on Mars as recently as 1. Colonizing Mars could speed up human evolution. Snapshot : Martian string of craters. The cannibalistic chaos within planetary systems.

How would humans decompose on Mars? Perseverance samples its first two rocks. Cosmos: Origin and Fate of the Universe. Astronomy's Moon Globe. Galaxies by David Eicher. Astronomy Puzzles. Jon Lomberg Milky Way Posters. Astronomy for Kids. Sign up. Table of Contents Subscribe Digital Editons. A chronicle of the first steps on the Moon , and what it took to get there. The Hawaiian islands result from the northwesterly movement of the Pacific plate over a stationary hotspot producing lava.

As the plate moves over the hotspot, new volcanoes are formed and the existing ones become extinct. This distributes the total volume of lava among many volcanoes rather than one large volcano. On Mars, the crust remains stationary and the lava piles up in one, very large volcano. Mars Atlas. Olympus Mons compared to Arizona.