DescentBB

http://www.spacedaily.com/images/mars-o ... k-1280.jpg

1280 x 1024 of the caldera of Olympus Mons. The solar system's tallest mountain and volcano. Five times the height of everest, but almost flat sided.

Can you comprehend the nature and length of activity of this volcano? Wow.

what kinda scale are we looking at here.
how wide is this thing?

great pic btw, thx

That's a mountain? it looks more like a disc of raised land... But if you want to call that a mountain then COOL!!!

And if it's a volcano where's it's blowhole?

Great pic!

looks more like a crater than a mountain.... From the pic it looks the the sides go down

It is a crater. And it is AWESOME.

looks to me like the whole area is sagging. unlike a volcano or a crater. on the other hand, if you look at it considering the light source from the opposite side, it actually looks like a flat mountain. weird. like a 3D cube mesh on white paper.
oh yes, great pic

one more thing: since all the little craters aside it look like the light source is in the top right of the pic, it must be a "hole", crater, whatever you call it.
where's your source of info mobi?

What you are actually looking at is Olympus Mons Caldera. This is a view of the volcano from a different perspective:

That photo Woodchip posted is completely inaccurate. Olympus Mons is a "shield" volcano which means it has very flat sides - and the above image seems to have it's vertical component exaggerated by 20-50 times.

The scale of the very top image is hundreds-of-klicks across. So when we say "Large Volcano" - what we really mean is: drop Everest and just about every volcano on Earth into just the crater, and watch them get lost...

When you say the photo is not accurate, do you mean it has been photochopped? How can you tell?

i think olympus mons is supposed to be about the size of colorado. the idea of woody's photo is to give some persepective on the size of the caldera vs the entire formation (if my nomenclature is correct).

Floyd wrote: one more thing: since all the little craters aside it look like the light source is in the top right of the pic, it must be a "hole", crater, whatever you call it.

You mean those little bump things?

Mobi, I suggest you take a refresher course in Mars geology 101. That photo, if I am not mistaken, was by the Mars Orbital Surveyor

What does flat sides mean anyway? Are you talking about flat against the ground or not bumpy? Are you talking about the edges of the mountain or the top of it? What's a side?

Flat sides means absolutely nothing. Mountains don't have sides. Circles don't have sides. This mountain is circular.

chip that pic looks like a texture stretched over a (rather smoothish) 3d terrain. data which the MOS could have collected. but i'm pretty sure that pic is not a photo, it's a textured render.

Suncho wrote:

Floyd wrote: one more thing: since all the little craters aside it look like the light source is in the top right of the pic, it must be a "hole", crater, whatever you call it.

You mean those little bump things?

yes. now with woodchips pic, there's a contradiction.

http://images.google.com/images?q=Olympus+Mons

There.!

well check this out, it's just the little hole in the middle on mobi's pic:

so it is indeed a hole, the area around it is the mountain, and not a flat one at that, if you ask me. thanks jeff. sorry for playing capt. obvious, couldn't resist :O

kinda looks like the head of a cartoon insect...