Where is the highest mountain in the solar system?

As the highest mountain on Earth, the great name of Mount Everest can be said to be known to all people on Earth, but in the solar system, the Earth is not the only planet with mountains, so on other planets in the solar system, is there a higher mountain than Mount Everest?

The answer is yes, for example, Mount Maxwell on Venus. Maxwell Mountain is located in the northern hemisphere of Venus (closer to the north pole of Venus), detection data show that the highest peak of this mountain is 10,943 meters above Venus datum, can be said to be higher than Mount Everest, however, Maxwell Mountain in the solar system is not considered the highest.

Where is the tallest mountain in the solar system?

From the known exploration data, the highest mountain in the solar system is located on Mars, it is named Mount Olympus, this mountain is located in the northern hemisphere of Mars (the specific location is 18.65°, 226.2° East), the exploration data shows that the highest peak of Mount Olympus is 21,171 meters above the Martian datum, far more than the Mount Everest on Earth.

We know that Mount Everest belongs to the Himalayas is formed by the collision of plates, but the formation mechanism of Mount Olympus is not the same, in simple terms, it is actually from the underground magma gushing out gradually after cooling, because the shape of this mountain is very similar to the shield, so it is called "shield volcano".

There are also "shield volcanoes" on Earth, the highest of which is located in the central Hawaiian Islands Bold Nagoya volcano, but the elevation of this mountain is only 4170 meters, even from its foot located below sea level to calculate the height of its foot to the summit is only 10203 meters, simply can not be compared with Olympus.

It is also a "shield volcano", but why are the mountains on Mars so much higher? The main reason is that the mass of Mars is much smaller than that of the Earth, the same mass of objects on Mars by the gravity will of course be much lower than on Earth, and the low gravity environment allows the mountains on Mars to "grow" higher, not to be easily "crushed by gravity ".

What is the height of Mount Everest in the solar system?

If we limit the range to the big planets in the solar system, Everest's height can be ranked 7th, in order from lowest to highest, preceded by Maxwell (as we have already mentioned), Elysium (on Mars, 14,127 meters), Mormonism (on Mars, about 15,000 meters), Althea (on Mars, 17,781 meters), and Aeschylus (on Mars, 17,781 meters). 17,781 m), Mount Aeschylus (located on Mars, altitude 18,225 m), and Mount Olympus.

If we extend the range to smaller planets in the solar system, the ranking of Mount Everest will move back a bit, for example, the equatorial ridge on Titan VIII reaches a maximum of about 20,000 meters, while Mount Bolivia on Io has a height of at least 16,000 meters.

In particular, the "peak" in the central region of the Rhea Silverware basin on Vesta can reach heights of 20 to 25 km (there is not enough data to give a range), so it is thought that this "peak" is the tallest in the solar system, but since The height of this "mountain" is actually calculated from its base to its summit, so it is still commonly believed that Olympus is the tallest mountain in the solar system, since the Rhea Silvia basin is a meteorite impact crater.

Seeing here some people may say, the height of Mount Everest refers to its height above the Earth's sea level, while there are no oceans on other planets, so of course, there is no such thing as sea level, so such a ranking is unfair to Mount Everest.

Well, in order to be fair, we might as well see again, if all the oceans on the Earth are removed, how high would Mount Everest be.

When we describe the height of an object, we need to use a datum to define "height to zero", on Earth, the average sea level is a natural datum, while for planets without liquid oceans, we need to use other methods to define a datum.

How to define it? A common method is to use a gravity field model of the planet to calculate gravity participation that is closest to the average height of the planet's surface and use it as a datum to describe the height of objects on the planet's surface.

On Earth, we call the gravitational equilibrium plane that coincides with the surface of the stationary ocean the "gelid", which is equivalent to what we often call sea level.

It is known that the volume of the earth's oceans is about 1.37 billion cubic kilometers, and the earth's surface area is about 510 million square kilometers, a simple calculation shows that if the earth's oceans are evenly spread on the earth's surface, then its depth is about 2686 meters, that is, if all the earth's oceans are removed, then the height of Mount Everest will be increased by 2686 meters based on the existing, that is, about 11534 meters.

As you can see, even if all the oceans on Earth were removed, Everest would rank in the solar system just above Mount Maxwell on Venus, and its height would still be far below the tallest mountain in the solar system.

Well, that's all we have to say today, welcome to follow us and we'll see you next time.