alt=four peaks, Comparison of Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) to three Earth peaks
This is a list of all named mountains on
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
.
Naming
Most Martian mountains have a name including one of the following
astrogeological terms:
* ''
Mons
Mons commonly refers to:
* Mons, Belgium, a city in Belgium
* Mons pubis (mons Venus or mons veneris), in mammalian anatomy, the adipose tissue lying above the pubic bone
* Mons (planetary nomenclature), a sizable extraterrestrial mountain
* Batt ...
'' — large, isolated, mountain; may or may not be of
volcanic
A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...
origin.
** plural ''montes'' — mountain range.
* ''
Tholus'' — small dome-shaped mountain or hill.
** plural ''tholi'' — group of (usually not contiguous) small mountains.
* ''
Dorsum'' — long low range. Name type not present on Mars.
** plural ''dorsa''
* ''Patera'' — dish-shaped depressions on volcano peaks; not very high compared to diameter.
** plural ''paterae''
Caveats
Listed are the
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...
s of the peaks (the
vertical position
Vertical position or vertical location is a position (mathematics), position along a vertical direction (the plumb line direction) above or below a given vertical datum (a reference level surface, such as mean sea level).
Vertical distance or vert ...
relative to the
areoid, which is the Martian
vertical datum
In geodesy, surveying, hydrography and navigation, vertical datum or altimetric datum is a reference coordinate surface used for vertical positions, such as the elevations of Earth-bound features (terrain, bathymetry, water level, and built stru ...
— the surface defined as zero elevation by average martian atmospheric pressure and planet radius), which is ''not'' the height above the surrounding terrain (
topographic prominence
In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...
). Listed mons elevation is the highest point (at 16 pixels/degree) within the feature. Listed patera elevation is the average elevation of the shallow dish-shaped depression (the actual 'patera') at the summit.
List
Gallery
Ascraeus mons topo.jpg, alt=Topographic map of Ascraeus mons shaded in red, orange, and yellow, Topographic map of Ascraeus mons
605921main pia15101-full full.jpg, alt=, Aeolis Mons
Mount Sharp, officially Aeolis Mons (), is a mountain on Mars. It forms the central peak within Gale crater and is located around , rising high from the valley floor. Its ID in the United States Geological Survey's Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenc ...
, oblique view
See also
*
*
*
*
*
Notes
References
* United States Geological Survey data files megt90n000eb.img and megt90n000eb.lbl
External links
*Olympus Mons, Arsia Mons, Alba Patera
Viking Orbiter Views of Marsby the
Viking Orbiter Imaging Team.
*Ascraeus Mons
Malin Space Science Systems Release No. MOC2-950via the
Mars Global Surveyor
''Mars Global Surveyor'' (MGS) was an American Robotic spacecraft, robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It launched November 1996 and collected data from 1997 to 2006. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined ...
.
*Pavonis Mons
Malin Space Science Systems Release No. MOC2-481via the
Mars Global Surveyor
''Mars Global Surveyor'' (MGS) was an American Robotic spacecraft, robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It launched November 1996 and collected data from 1997 to 2006. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined ...
.
*Elysium Mons
Malin Space Science Systemsvia the
Mars Global Surveyor
''Mars Global Surveyor'' (MGS) was an American Robotic spacecraft, robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It launched November 1996 and collected data from 1997 to 2006. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined ...
.
Mars features database distributed with xephem v3.3(Warning, it uses West coordinates, and table should be in East coordinates)
IAU, USGS: Martian system nomenclatureIAU, USGS: Mars nomenclature: mountains (planetocentric east longitude)IAU, USGS: Mars nomenclature: tholus (planetocentric east longitude)Peter Grego, Mars and how to Observe it(List of elevations of named Martian mountains)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mountains on Mars
category:highest things
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
category:surface features of Mars