A Volcano of Godly Proportions
Image by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The enormous Olympus Mons volcano appears in its entirety in a wide-angle image created by Mars Global Surveyor. Taken over a five-minute period while Surveyor passed close to the surface, the image looks down on the volcano’s 50-mile-wide [80-kilometer-wide] summit caldera. A broad, sloping shield volcano, Olympus Mons is the highest point on Mars, rising 13.5 miles [22 kilometers] above a lava-strewn plain.
