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Thinking of the highest mountains, what do we imagine? Landscapes of Asia, Africa, America, or even Russia. But what if we look wider and study the mountains not only on Earth, but also beyond? We present you a list of the 10 highest mountains in the solar system. The highest point is located on Mars, and what other elevations are there on the terrestrial planets?
10 Verona, 3 km
Verona is a rock on Miranda, a moon of Uranus. The most amazing thing about it is not the peak, but a cliff that was previously thought to be between 5 and 10 km high, but as of 2016 is considered to be 20 km high, which makes it the highest known cliff in the solar system. The cliff could have been created by a strong impact that caused the destruction and reassembly of the satellite, or by a tear in the earth’s crust.
Given Miranda’s low gravity, the fall from the top will take about 12 minutes, and you can reach the bottom at a speed of about 200 km / h. The most amazing thing is that even in this case, a person could survive with protection and airbags.
9. Mauna Kea, 4,2 km
mauna kea in Hawaii it is considered a dormant shield volcano. Underwater volcanic eruptions began building Mauna Kea from the seabed about 800 years ago. The volcanic basalt shield stage began at least 300 years ago. Alkaline activity began about 60-70 thousand years ago, and the most recent eruptions occurred about 4000-5000 years ago.
The composition of Mauna Kea is mainly tholeiitic basalt overlain by hawaiiite to benmorite alkaline lavas. Remains of the ice sheet from the last global ice age (about 20 years ago) can be seen at the top of Mauna Kea.
Mauna Kea is well known to the locals as a great place for skiing and snowboarding, although it sounds strange. Many people go to the mountain every winter because it often snows at the top and there is a road leading to it. In fact, it is because of the snow cap that the Hawaiians named the mountain Mauna Kea (or “White Mountain“).
8. Euboea, 10,5 km
Euboea A mountain on Io, Jupiter’s moon. It has a height of about 10,5 km and was formed by tilting a block of the earth’s crust, followed by modification by a very large landslide.
The mountain is shaped like a rugby ball (175 km by 240 km) and is located about 40 km east of the Creidne Patera caldera.
There is a curved ridge that divides Euboea into two parts: a steep southern flank with an uneven surface of rounded mounds, and a smoother northern flank that slopes about 6° to the northwest.
7. Arcia, 19 km
It is an extinct volcano in the Tarsis region near the equator of Mars. Its name is the classical name of the object and comes from the corresponding albedo feature on the map by Giovanni Schiaparelli, which he in turn named after the legendary Roman forest of Arsia Silva.
The researchers found a lot of evidence of glaciers on Arsia, in particular seven cave entrances on the sides of the volcano. These caves may contain reserves of water ice or even life.
6. Elysium, 16 km
This volcano is much smaller than the Tarsis volcanoes. Its height is only 9 km, and its diameter is about 240 km. Thus, it is almost the same size as the largest Hawaiian volcanoes. However, like Tarsis, Elysius “sits” on a large number of lava flows. This allows it to rise 12 km above the average height of the planet. It descends so smoothly into the surrounding lava plains that its base is hard to see.
A smaller volcano, Albor, can also be seen, partially buried by the lava plains surrounding Elysium. Also in the area of the mountain, apparently, ground ice is widespread (there is no 100% accurate data yet). Such ice melts easily near hot magmas, so meltwater is theoretically a ready source of erosion in the Elysium region.
5. Mount Askriyskaya, 18 km
Asari mountain – the highest of the three large volcanoes located northeast of the Tarsis River and aligned with the parallel structural northeast coast. With a vertical topography of 14,9 km and a diameter of 400 km, the main crater has a domed shape and a rising plateau, while much younger lava reef descents emerge from extensive protrusions on its lower slopes to the surrounding plains.
The Askrian mountain has several types of well-preserved surface structures and therefore served as a basis for understanding the geodynamics of the Martian volcano.
4. South Boosavla, 17,5 km
South Boosavla, located to the northwest of the Pele plume deposit, actually consists of not one, but three separate mountains connected by an elevated plain. Each mountain has a unique shape and relief.
Boosavla is the highest mountain on Io: based on a 2001 stereo work by Paul Schenk et al., this massif is at least 17,5 km high. This is more than 7 km than the next highest mountain on Io – Euboea.
The mountain has an irregular shape, with a relatively gentle slope for most of the mountain, except for a sharp drop at the southeastern edge of the peak.
3. Stena Iapeta, 13 km
mountain range on Iapetus has remained a mystery since 2004. The new simulations show that it formed from rocky debris falling at shallow angles, which would have allowed the material to travel down and accumulate into a continuous rock mass.
The first astronomers who observed Iapetus could not see the mountain range spanning three-quarters of the equator, but they could see that one side was brighter than the other, so the surface material on those faces must be different.
The first hints that the mountains of Iapetus surround the equator came when the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew over Saturn and its moons in 1981. The scientists saw that there were several “aligned” mountain peaks near the equator.
Curiously, it wasn’t until December 2004, when the Cassini spacecraft flew past Iapetus, that astronomers determined that these aligned peaks were part of a 1400 km long chain of mountains reaching almost 12 km in height.
2. Reyasilvia, 19 km
Rheasilvia – an impact crater on the asteroid Vesta, which has an impressive diameter of 505 km, which is 90% of the diameter of Vesta itself. However, the average value depends on the crater itself. This makes it one of the largest craters in the solar system, and the peak at the center of the crater makes it one of the tallest mountains known in the solar system.
1. Olympus, 26 km
The largest volcano in the solar system and the largest mountain in the solar system is everything Olympus on Mars. An extinct volcano that rises an amazing 26 km. This makes it 3 (!) times the height of Mount Everest.
Unlike Everest, Olympus has a very gentle slope, up to the base of which as much as 550 km. The edge of the base of the volcano is marked by a basal rock, the height of which in some places reaches 6 km.
Mount Olympus is the result of many thousands of basaltic lava flows. The unusual size of the volcano is explained by the lack of movement of tectonic plates on the planet: this allows the Martian crust to remain fixed in place over a magma hotspot, which allows large lava flows to repeat. Many of these streams have dams along their edges. The cooler outer edges of the flow solidify, forming dams and leaving a central trough of molten, flowing lava.