The volcanic region of Tharsis and the Martian moon Phobos
The volcanic region of Tharsis and the Martian moon Phobos
One of the most geologically interesting areas on Mars is the Tharsis region, a bulge with a height of over four kilometres, roughly the size of North America, and home to four of the tallest volcanoes in the Solar System: Olympus Mons (22 kilometres high), Ascraeus Mons (18 kilometres), Pavonis Mons (12 kilometres) and Arsia Mons (14 kilometres). The Tharsis bulge was imaged during the 25,000 orbit of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express orbiter from a distance that made it possible to obtain a strip of images from the southern highlands to the northern lowlands. In addition to numerous other striking landscape features, the approximately 28-kilometre-diameter Martian moon Phobos, which orbits the planet at an altitude of 6000 kilometres, can also be seen in the southernmost quarter of the image.
