Because of the size and shallow slopes of Olympus Mons, an observer standing on the Martian surface would be unable to view the entire profile of the volcano, even from a great distance. The curvature of the planet and the volcano itself would obscure such a synoptic view. Similarly, an observer near the summit would be unaware of standing on a very high mountain, as the slope of the volcano would extend far beyond the horizon, a mere 3 kilometers away.
That’s what I always wondered. What Olympus Mons would look like on Earth. But as tall as it is, it’s mostly flat. Like, a peak/mountain shaped mountain that was that tall would be super imposing from great distances, but Olympus Mons is just this massive plateau.
If Mars had an atmosphere and we began populating Mars, I wonder if there would be whole cities atop Olympus Mons. Or at least towns. It’s not an active volcano. If it were, anything anywhere near it would be royally fucked. But it’s cool to think about. Maybe one day our descendants will be able to travel there. As of now, no one has.
IIRC Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy has some very interesting speculation around all of this.
Honest question: Where do we start the measurement? There is obviously no „sea level“ on Mars.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210530171304/https://tharsis.gsfc.nasa.gov/mola.summary.pdf
Zero elevation on Mars from MOLA is defined as the equipotential surface (gravitational plus rotational) whose average value at the equator is equal to the mean radius as de- termined by MOLA (cf. Table 4). The planetary radius and a gravity model derived from MGS Doppler tracking data [Lemoine et al., this issue] with the IAU91 coordinate sys- tem parameters for Mars [Davies et al., 1992a] collectively provided the geopotential of Mars’ mean equatorial radius. This equipotential surface was then extended to all latitudes as the zero-level reference for topography.
The universe had a chance and blew it, the mountain is 420 feet too tall. I’lll see myself out.
That’s just a double 420!
Two joints!
When I play video game and at every 10,000 points.
