OLYMPUS MONS (MARS) BY NASA VIKING PROGRAM

NASA VIKING PROGRAM (1975-1982)

Olympus Mons (21, 230m -  69,650ft) 

Planet Mars - Solar system  

1.  Image of Olympus Mons from NASA Viking 1 Orbiter in 1974 

2.  Olumpus Mons caldera from Mars Express camera on 26 May 2004 

The mountain 

Olympus Mons (21, 230m -  69,650 ft) is a very large shield volcano located on the planet Mars. By one measure, it has a height of nearly 22 km (13.6 mi). Olympus Mons stands about two and a half times as tall as Mount Everest's height above sea level. It is the youngest of the large volcanoes on Mars, having formed during Mars's Hesperian Period. It is currently the largest volcano discovered in the Solar System and had been known to astronomers since the late 19th century as the albedo feature Nix Olympica (Latin for "Olympic Snow"). Its mountainous nature was suspected well before space probes confirmed its identity as a mountain.

The volcano is located in Mars's western hemisphere at approximately 18.65°N 226.2°E, just off the northwestern edge of the Tharsis bulge. The western portion of the volcano lies in the Amazonis quadrangle (MC-8) and the central and eastern portions in the adjoining Tharsis quadrangle (MC-9).

Two impact craters on Olympus Mons have been assigned provisional names by the International Astronomical Union. They are the 15.6 km (9.7 mi)-diameter Karzok crater (18°25′N 131°55′W) and the 10.4 km (6.5 mi)-diameter Pangboche crater (17°10′N 133°35′W). The craters are notable for being two of several suspected source areas for shergottites, the most abundant class of Martian meteorites.

Olympus Mons and a few other volcanoes in the Tharsis region stand high enough to reach above the frequent Martian dust-storms recorded by telescopic observers as early as the 19th century. The astronomer Patrick Moore pointed out that Schiaparelli (1835–1910) "had found that his Nodus Gordis and Olympic Snow [Nix Olympica] were almost the only features to be seen" during dust storms, and "guessed correctly that they must be high".
The Mariner 9 spacecraft arrived in orbit around Mars in 1971 during a global dust-storm. The first objects to become visible as the dust began to settle, the tops of the Tharsis volcanoes, demonstrated that the altitude of these features greatly exceeded that of any mountain found on Earth, as astronomers expected. Observations of the planet from Mariner 9 confirmed that Nix Olympica was not just a mountain, but a volcano. Ultimately, astronomers adopted the name Olympus Mons for the albedo feature known as Nix Olympica.

The program

The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface. The orbiters also served as communication relays for the landers once they touched down.
The Viking program grew from NASA's earlier, even more ambitious, Voyager Mars program, which was not related to the successful Voyager deep space probes of the late 1970s. Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975, and the second craft, Viking 2, was launched on September 9, 1975, both riding atop Titan III-E rockets with Centaur upper stages. Viking 1 entered Mars orbit on June 19, 1976, with Viking 2 following suit on August 7.
After orbiting Mars for more than a month and returning images used for landing site selection, the orbiters and landers detached; the landers then entered the Martian atmosphere and soft-landed at the sites that had been chosen. The Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars on July 20, 1976, and was joined by the Viking 2 lander on September 3. The orbiters continued imaging and performing other scientific operations from orbit while the landers deployed instruments on the surface.
The project cost roughly 1 billion USD in 1970s dollars, equivalent to about 11 billion USD in 2016 dollars. It was highly successful and formed most of the body of knowledge about Mars through the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Source :
 - NASA- JPL-CALTECH

OLYMPUS MONS (ON MARS) PHOTOGRAPHED BY NASA MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR

NASA MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR  (1996-2007)
Olympus Mons (21, 230m - 69,650ft)
Mars (Solar system)

The Volcano
Olympus Mons (21, 230m / 21, 2 km-  69,650 ft /1 3 mi) is a very large shield volcano located on the planet Mars,  the largest volcano in the solar system. The massive Martian mountain towers high above the surrounding plains of the red planet, and may be biding its time until the next eruption.By one measure, it has a height of nearly 22 km (13.6 mi). Olympus Mons stands about two and a half times as tall as Mount Everest's height above sea level. It is the youngest of the large volcanoes on Mars, having formed during Mars's Hesperian Period. It had been known to astronomers since the late 19th century as the albedo feature Nix Olympica (Latin for "Olympic Snow"). Its mountainous nature was suspected well before space probes confirmed its identity as a mountain.

The volcano is located in Mars's western hemisphere at approximately 18.65°N 226.2°E, just off the northwestern edge of the Tharsis bulge. The western portion of the volcano lies in the Amazonis quadrangle (MC-8) and the central and eastern portions in the adjoining Tharsis quadrangle (MC-9).

Two impact craters on Olympus Mons have been assigned provisional names by the International Astronomical Union. They are the 15.6 km (9.7 mi)-diameter Karzok crater (18°25′N 131°55′W) and the 10.4 km (6.5 mi)-diameter Pangboche crater (17°10′N 133°35′W). The craters are notable for being two of several suspected source areas for shergottites, the most abundant class of Martian meteorites. Olympus Mons and a few other volcanoes in the Tharsis region stand high enough to reach above the frequent Martian dust-storms recorded by telescopic observers as early as the 19th century. The astronomer Patrick Moore pointed out that Schiaparelli (1835–1910) "had found that his Nodus Gordis and Olympic Snow [Nix Olympica] were almost the only features to be seen" during dust storms, and "guessed correctly that they must be high". The Mariner 9 spacecraft arrived in orbit around Mars in 1971 during a global dust-storm. The first objects to become visible as the dust began to settle, the tops of the Tharsis volcanoes, demonstrated that the altitude of these features greatly exceeded that of any mountain found on Earth, as astronomers expected. Observations of the planet from Mariner 9 confirmed that Nix Olympica was not just a mountain, but a volcano. Ultimately, astronomers adopted the name Olympus Mons for the albedo feature known as Nix Olympica.

The mission
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was an American robotic spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 7, 1996. Mars Global Surveyor was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface. As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed monitoring relay for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and it helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry.
It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2 November 2006, the spacecraft failed to respond to messages and commands. A faint signal was detected three days later which indicated that it had gone into safe mode. Attempts to recontact the spacecraft and resolve the problem failed, and NASA officially ended the mission in January 2007.
The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science investigation used 3 instruments: a narrow angle camera that took (black-and-white) high resolution images (usually 1.5 to 12 m per pixel) and red and blue wide angle pictures for context (240 m per pixel) and daily global imaging (7.5 km per pixel). MOC returned more than 240,000 images spanning portions of 4.8 Martian years, from September 1997 and November 2006.[6] A high resolution image from MOC covers a distance of either 1.5 or 3.1 km long. Often, a picture will be smaller than this because it has been cut to just show a certain feature. These high resolution images may cover features 3 to 10 km long. When a high resolution image is taken, a context image is taken as well. The context image shows the image footprint of the high resolution picture. Context images are typically 115.2 km square with 240 m/pixel resolution.

The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, or MOLA, is an instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), a spacecraft that was launched on November 7, 1996. The mission of MGS was to orbit Mars, and map it over the course of approximately 3 years, which it did sucessfully, completing 4 1/2 years of mapping.
Determining the height of surface features on Mars is important to mapping it. To this end, MGS carried a laser altimeter on board. This instrument, MOLA, collected altimetry data until June 30, 2001. MOLA then operated as a radiometer until October 7, 2006.
This website will explain what MOLA is and how it works, and share some of the important discoveries about Mars that have been made using MOLA data.

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2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

AEOLIS MONS BY NASA CURIOSITY MISSION

NASA CURIOSITY MISSION (since 2012)

Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp (5, 500 m - 18, 000 ft)

Mars  

3 pictures of Aeolis Mons taken by NASA Curiosity Rover & Curiosity team : 

1. Aeolis Mons photographed by  Curiosity Rover on September 9, 2012

2. Aeolis Mons photographed by Curiosity Rover on September 20, 2012

3.  Aeolis Mons photographed  by Curiosity Rover on August 6, 2012

(Click images to enlarge)  

The mountain

Aeolis Mons (5, 500 m - 18, 000 ft) also called Mount Sharp is a mountain on the surface of the planet Mars. It forms the central peak within Gale crater and is located around 5.08°S 137.85°E, rising 5.5 km (18,000 ft) high from the valley floor. Aeolis Mons is about the same height as Mons Huygens, the tallest lunar mountain, and taller than Mons Hadley visited by Apollo 15. The tallest mountain known in the Solar System is in Rheasilvia crater on the asteroid Vesta, which contains a central mound that rises 22 km  or 22.000 m - 14 mi or 72,000 ft high.
Olympus Mons on Mars is nearly the same height, at 21.9 km (13.6 mi; 72,000 ft) high.
In comparison, Mount Everest / Chomolunga rises to 8.8 km -29,000 ft altitude above sea level, but is only 4.6 km - 15,000 ft  base-to-peak. Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro is about 5.9 km - 19,000 ft altitude above sea level  also 4.6 km base-to-peak. America's Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, has a base-to-peak of 5.5 km -18,000 ft.  The Franco-Italian Mont Blanc/Monte Bianco is 4.8 km -16,000 ft in altitude above sea level.  Mount Fuji, which overlooks Tokyo, Japan, is about 3.8 km -12,000 ft altitude. Compared to the Andes, Aeolis Mons would rank outside the hundred tallest peaks, being roughly the same height as Argentina's Cerro Pajonal; the peak is higher than any above sea level in Oceania, but base-to peak it is considerably shorter than Hawaii's Mauna Kea and its neighbors.
Discovered in the 1970s by NAS,  the mountain remained nameless for perhaps 40 years. When it became a likely landing site, it was given various labels; for example, in 2010 a NASA photo caption called it "Gale crater mound".  In March 2012, NASA unofficially named it "Mount Sharp", for American geologist Robert P. Sharp. The International Astronomical Union, which is responsible for planetary nomenclature for its participants, names large Martian mountains after the Classical albedo feature in which it is located, not for people. In May 2012 the IAU thus named the mountain Aeolis Mons, and gave the name Aeolis Palus to the crater floor plain between the northern wall of Gale and the northern foothills of the mountain. Despite the official name, NASA and the ESA continue to refer to the mountain as "Mount Sharp" in press conferences and press releases
Aeolis is the ancient name of the Izmir region in western Turkey.

The NASA mission 
On August 6, 2012, Curiosity (the Mars Science Laboratory rover) landed in "Yellowknife" Quad of Aeolis Palus, next to the mountain. NASA named the landing site Bradbury Landing on August 22, 2012. Aeolis Mons is a primary goal for scientific study.
 On June 5, 2013, NASA announced that Curiosity would begin a 8 km (5.0 mi) journey from the Glenelg area to the base of Aeolis Mons.
On November 13, 2013, NASA announced that an entryway Curiosity would traverse on its way to Aeolis Mons was to be named "Murray Buttes", in honor of planetary scientist Bruce C. Murray (1931–2013). The trip was expected to take about a year and would include stops along the way to study the local terrain.
On September 11, 2014, NASA announced that the Curiosity rover had reached Aeolis Mons, the rover mission's long-term prime destination.
On October 5, 2015, possible recurrent slope lineae, wet brine flows, were reported on Mount Sharp near Curiosity.

As of January 20, 2017, Curiosity has been on the planet Mars for 1585 sols (1628 days) since landing on August 6, 2012. 

Sources: 

- NASA Curiosity Mission page 

- Wikipedia

OLYMPUS MONS / PLANÈTE MARS PHOTOGRAPHIÉ PAR NASA VIKING ORBITER 1

NASA VIKING ORBITER  (1975-1982)
Olympus Mons (21, 229 mètres soit 21, 2 km d'altitude)
Planète Mars (Voie Lactée)

D'après une photographie prise en 1979, à 5000 km de hauteur, retouchée par IA en 2020. 

Photo originale prise par la sonde NASA Viking Orbiter 1 en 1979.

Le  volcan
Olympus Mons (21, 2 km)  nom latin pour « mont Olympe », est un volcan bouclier de la planète Mars situé dans les quadrangles d'Amazonis et de Tharsis. C'est le plus haut relief connu du système solaire, culminant à 21 229 mètres au-dessus du niveau de référence martien selon les mesures très précises de l'altimètre laser de Mars Global Surveyor (ancienne mesure 22 500 mètres). Son impressionnant diamètre est de 648 km, c'est à dire qu'il couvrirait la plus grande partie du territoire français et Suisse s'étendant de Bordeaux à Genève et de Paris à Montélimar !
Il se trouve sur la bordure nord-ouest du renflement de Tharsis, immense soulèvement de la surface martienne, centré sur Noctis Labyrinthus et Syria Planum, dont l'extension occidentale concentre une douzaine de volcans majeurs..
L'édifice central s'élève à  deux fois et demie la hauteur de l'Everest par rapport au niveau de la mer et plus du double de celle du Mauna Kea (Hawaï) par rapport à sa base  Il possède à son sommet une caldeira complexe d'environ 80 × 60 kilomètres résultant de la coalescence d'au moins six cratères enchevêtrés, attestant de l'histoire mouvementée de la caldeira avec notamment la présence de grabens résultant de l'effondrement de la surface dans une faille.
Il est entouré d'une falaise formant un escarpement continu sur toute sa circonférence, d'une hauteur de 2 à 6 kilomètres. Au-delà de cet escarpement se trouve une zone souvent appelée « l'auréole » du volcan, constituée de crêtes et de grands blocs s'étendant jusqu'à un millier de kilomètres de la caldeira. Cela met en évidence l'expansion et la modification de la surface liées à l'activité glaciaire.
L'inclinaison des pentes du volcan est voisine de 5 degrés en moyenne, atteignant 30 degrés au niveau de l'escarpement périphérique.
À proximité de la caldeira se trouvent deux cratères d'impact. À une vingtaine de kilomètres au sud, le cratère Pangboche a un diamètre de 10,4 kilomètres. Il a été nommé par l'Union astronomique internationale en 2006 d'après une localité du Népal située à vingt kilomètres du sommet de l'Everest. C'est sur le rebord ouest de ce cratère que se trouve le point le plus haut d'Olympus Mons, à 21 229 mètres au-dessus du niveau de référence. Le cratère Karzok, situé à une quarantaine de kilomètres à l'est de la caldeira, a un diamètre de 15,6 kilomètres. Il a été nommé d'après une localité du Cachemire indien. D'autres cratères d'impact sont également visibles sur les flancs du volcan.
L'escarpement et l'auréole sont tous deux mal compris. La falaise résulterait de glissements de terrain, et l'auréole proviendrait des matériaux entassés au bas de ces glissements. Les coulées de lave s'étendent au-delà de l'escarpement. L'escarpement qui entoure la montagne à sa base aurait été formé par des glissements de terrain induits par une fonte massive du permafrost11 ou par un soulèvement tectonique. Les structures linéaires en forme de crêtes présentes autour du volcan au-delà de l'escarpement seraient, quant à elles, des dykes mis en place après les dernières coulées de lave ayant atteint la base du volcan. Son premier nom, Nix Olympica, en français « Neige de l'Olympe », lui avait été donné par l'astronome italien Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910). 

La mission
NASA Viking Orbiter 1 était le premier des deux engins spatiaux (avec Viking 2) envoyés sur Mars dans le cadre du programme Viking de la NASA. Le 20 juillet 1976, il est devenu le deuxième vaisseau spatial à atterrir en douceur sur Mars, et le premier à réussir sa mission. (Le premier vaisseau spatial à atterrir en douceur sur Mars était le Mars 3 de l'Union soviétique le 2 décembre 1971, qui a cessé de transmettre après 14,5 secondes.) Viking 1 détenait le record de la plus longue mission de surface de Mars de 2307 jours (plus de 6 1⁄ 4 ans) ou 2245 jours solaires martiens, jusqu'à ce que ce record soit battu par le rover Opportunity le 19 mai 2010. Après le lancement à l'aide d'un lanceur Titan/Centaur le 20 août 1975 et une croisière de 11 mois vers Mars, l'orbiteur a commencé à renvoyer des images globales de Mars environ 5 jours avant l'insertion en orbite. L'orbiteur Viking 1 a été inséré dans l'orbite de Mars le 19 juin 1976 et ajusté à une orbite de certification de site de 1513 x 33 000 km, 24,66 h le 21 juin. L'atterrissage sur Mars était prévu pour le 4 juillet 1976, le bicentenaire des États-Unis, mais l'imagerie du site d'atterrissage principal a montré qu'il était trop difficile pour un atterrissage en toute sécurité. L'atterrissage a été retardé jusqu'à ce qu'un site plus sûr soit trouvé et a eu lieu à la place le 20 juillet, le septième anniversaire de l'alunissage d'Apollo 11. L'atterrisseur s'est séparé de l'orbiteur à 08:51 UTC et a atterri à Chryse Planitia à 11:53:06 UTC. C'était la première tentative des États-Unis d'atterrir sur Mars.
Les instruments de l'orbiteur se composaient de deux caméras vidicon pour l'imagerie (VIS), d'un spectromètre infrarouge pour la cartographie de la vapeur d'eau (MAWD) et de radiomètres infrarouges pour la cartographie thermique (IRTM). La mission principale de l'orbiteur s'est terminée au début de la conjonction solaire le 5 novembre 1976.
La mission prolongée a commencé le 14 décembre 1976, après la conjonction solaire. Les opérations comprenaient des approches rapprochées de Phobos en février 1977. Le périastre a été réduit à 300 km le 11 mars 1977. Des ajustements mineurs d'orbite ont été effectués occasionnellement au cours de la mission, principalement pour modifier le taux de marche - le taux auquel la longitude aréocentrique changé à chaque orbite, et le périastre a été porté à 357 km le 20 juillet 1979. Le 7 août 1980, Viking 1 Orbiter manquait de gaz de contrôle d'attitude et son orbite a été portée de 357 × 33943 km à 320 × 56000 km pour éviter l'impact avec Mars et une éventuelle contamination jusqu'en 2019. Les opérations ont pris fin le 17 août 1980, après 1485 orbites. Une analyse de 2009 a conclu que, même si la possibilité que Viking 1 ait eu un impact sur Mars ne pouvait être exclue, il était très probablement toujours en orbite. Plus de 57 000 images ont été renvoyées sur Terre.

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2023 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

 

AEOLIS MONS OR MOUNT SHARP BY NASA CURIOSITY MISSION

 

NASA CURIOSITY MISSION (since 2012)
Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp (5, 500 m - 18, 000 ft)
Mars

From "At the base of Aeolis Mons on Mars ", photo, 23 August 2012

The mountain
Aeolis Mons (5, 500 m - 18, 000 ft) also called Mount Sharp is a mountain on the surface of the planet Mars. It forms the central peak within Gale crater and is located around 5.08°S 137.85°E, rising 5.5 km (18,000 ft) high from the valley floor. Aeolis Mons is about the same height as Mons Huygens, the tallest lunar mountain, and taller than Mons Hadley visited by Apollo 15. The tallest mountain known in the Solar System is in Rheasilvia crater on the asteroid Vesta, which contains a central mound that rises 22 km or 22.000 m - 14 mi or 72,000 ft high.
Olympus Mons on Mars is nearly the same height, at 21.9 km (13.6 mi; 72,000 ft) high.
In comparison, Mount Everest / Chomolunga rises to 8.8 km -29,000 ft altitude above sea level, but is only 4.6 km - 15,000 ft base-to-peak. Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro is about 5.9 km - 19,000 ft altitude above sea level also 4.6 km base-to-peak. America's Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, has a base-to-peak of 5.5 km -18,000 ft. The Franco-Italian Mont Blanc/Monte Bianco is 4.8 km -16,000 ft in altitude above sea level. Mount Fuji, which overlooks Tokyo, Japan, is about 3.8 km -12,000 ft altitude. Compared to the Andes, Aeolis Mons would rank outside the hundred tallest peaks, being roughly the same height as Argentina's Cerro Pajonal; the peak is higher than any above sea level in Oceania, but base-to peak it is considerably shorter than Hawaii's Mauna Kea and its neighbors.
Discovered in the 1970s by NAS, the mountain remained nameless for perhaps 40 years. When it became a likely landing site, it was given various labels; for example, in 2010 a NASA photo caption called it "Gale crater mound". In March 2012, NASA unofficially named it "Mount Sharp", for American geologist Robert P. Sharp. The International Astronomical Union, which is responsible for planetary nomenclature for its participants, names large Martian mountains after the Classical albedo feature in which it is located, not for people. In May 2012 the IAU thus named the mountain Aeolis Mons, and gave the name Aeolis Palus to the crater floor plain between the northern wall of Gale and the northern foothills of the mountain. Despite the official name, NASA and the ESA continue to refer to the mountain as "Mount Sharp" in press conferences and press releases
Aeolis is the ancient name of the Izmir region in western Turkey.

The NASA mission
On August 6, 2012, Curiosity (the Mars Science Laboratory rover) landed in "Yellowknife" Quad of Aeolis Palus, next to the mountain. NASA named the landing site Bradbury Landing on August 22, 2012. Aeolis Mons is a primary goal for scientific study.
On June 5, 2013, NASA announced that Curiosity would begin a 8 km (5.0 mi) journey from the Glenelg area to the base of Aeolis Mons.
On November 13, 2013, NASA announced that an entryway Curiosity would traverse on its way to Aeolis Mons was to be named "Murray Buttes", in honor of planetary scientist Bruce C. Murray (1931–2013). The trip was expected to take about a year and would include stops along the way to study the local terrain.
On September 11, 2014, NASA announced that the Curiosity rover had reached Aeolis Mons, the rover mission's long-term prime destination.
On October 5, 2015, possible recurrent slope lineae, wet brine flows, were reported on Mount Sharp near Curiosity.
As of January 20, 2017, Curiosity has been on the planet Mars for 1585 sols (1628 days) since landing on August 6, 2012. 

___________________________________________
2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE THREE THARSIS MONTES BY NASA VIKING 1 ORBITER

NASA VIKING PROGRAM (1975-1982) 

The three Tharsis Montes:

Ascraeus Mons (18, 225m / 18, 1 kms - 50, 793 ft / 11, 1mi)  

Pavonis Mons (14, 000m / 14km - 46, 000ft / 8,7 mi) 

Arsia Mons (17, 761 m  17 / - 58, 721ft / 11 mi)

MARS 

1. The Three Tharsis montes  photographed in 1980 by Viking1 orbiter 

2. Arsia Mons,  Viking mosaic showing the massive side lobes on the southwest (top) and northeast (bottom) sides of the volcano

The volcanoes 
The three Tharsis Montes (Fountains mountains in latin) are three large shield volcanoes in the Tharsis region of the planet Mars. From north to south (up to down on the image), the volcanoes are:  : Ascraeus Mons,  Pavonis Mons and Arsia Mons named by Giovanni Schiaparelli after the legendary Roman forest of Arsia Silva.
Arsia Mons (17, 761 m  17 / - 58, 721ft / 11 mi) is the southernmost of three volcanos (collectively known as Tharsis Montes) on the Tharsis bulge near the equator of the planet Mars, the tallest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, is to its northwest.
Arsia Mons (down left on the  first photo) is a shield volcano with a relatively low slope and a massive caldera at its summit.
The three Tharsis Montes, together with some smaller volcanoes to the north, form a rather straight line. It has been proposed that these are the result of plate tectonics, which on Earth makes chains of "hot spot" volcanoes.
The Tharsis Montes volcanoes lie near the equator, along the crest of a vast volcanic plateau called the Tharsis region or Tharsis bulge.
The three Tharsis Montes volcanoes are evenly spaced about 700 km (430 mi) apart from peak to peak, in a line oriented southwest-northeast. This alignment is unlikely to be coincidental.

The mission 
Viking 1 Orbiter color mosaic of the eastern Tharsis region on Mars. At left, from top to bottom, are the three 25 km high volcanic shields, Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Arsia Mons. The shield at upper right is Tharsis Tholus. The canyon system at lower right is Noctis Labyrinthus, the westernmost extension of Valles Marineris. The smooth area at bottom center is Syria Planum. The distance between the calderas of Ascraeus and Pavonis Mons is 800 km. North is up. The images used to produce this mosaic were taken during orbit 1334 on 22 February 1980.

___________________________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

CERAUNIUS THOLUS SEEN BY NASA MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR

NASA MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR  (1996-2007) 

Ceraunius Tholus (5,500 m  / 5, 5 km - 18,044 ft  / 3,4 mi)

MARS

1. In View of Ceraunius Tholus (left) and Uranius Tholus (right), Mars Orbiter Camera of 

Mars Global Surveyor, 2002

2.    In The volcanoes Ceraunius Tholus (left) and Uranius Tholus (right) showed by 

THEMIS daytime infrared image mosaic, 2012

The mountain 
Ceraunius Tholus (5,500 m -  )is a volcano on Mars located in the Tharsis quadrangle at 24.25° north latitude and 262.75° east longitude, part of the Uranius group of volcanoes. It is 130 km across, 5.5 km high and is named after a classical albedo feature name.
Ceraunius Tholus is on the Tharsis rise, also called the Tharsis bulge. Tharsis is a land of great volcanoes. Olympus Mons is the tallest known volcano. Ascraeus Mons and Pavonis Mons are at least 320 km across and are over 10 km above the plateau that they sit on. The plateau is five to four seven kilometers above the zero altitude of Mars.
Ceranius Tholus is generally believed to be a basaltic shield with the lower part buried beneath plain forming lavas. Earlier interpretations suggested that it is a stratovolcano.  The slopes on Ceraunius Tholus are quite steep with an average slope of 8° with many radial erosion channels and pitted valleys extending from just below the rim of the caldera toward the base of the volcano. The current view is that the valleys were eroded by water.  Interesting features on Ceraunius Tholus are three large canyons at the northwest flank of Ceraunius Tholus which are up to 2.5 km wide and 300 m deep. The biggest of these three also appears to be the youngest and protrude from the lowest point of the volcanic caldera and ends at the interesting crater Rahe (an oblique impact crater with measures of 35 Ч 18 km), just north from the volcano where it formed a depositional fan. Its origin is still debatable and there are four main models proposed: fluvial action, volcanic flows, valley being a lava channel or some combination of previously mentioned models.
Ceraunius appears small compared to other larger volcanoes, but it is almost as tall as Earth's Mount Everest. The caldera of Ceranius Tholus is also dotted with many collapse pits, which are distinct from impact craters as they have no rim and vary in abundance across the caldera. Ceraunius Tholus is probably late Hesperian in age.
Some scientists believe that glaciers may have existed on many of the volcanoes in Tharsis including Olympus Mons, Ascraeus Mons, and Pavonis Mons.  Ceraunius Tholus may have even had its glaciers melt to form some temporary lakes in the past. The smoothness and flatness of the Ceraunius Tholus caldera floor suggests that in the past meltwater accumulated in a caldera lake.

The mission
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was an American robotic spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 7, 1996. Mars Global Surveyor was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface.  As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed monitoring relay for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and it helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry.
It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2 November 2006, the spacecraft failed to respond to messages and commands. A faint signal was detected three days later which indicated that it had gone into safe mode. Attempts to recontact the spacecraft and resolve the problem failed, and NASA officially ended the mission in January 2007.
The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science investigation used 3 instruments: a narrow angle camera that took (black-and-white) high resolution images (usually 1.5 to 12 m per pixel) and red and blue wide angle pictures for context (240 m per pixel) and daily global imaging (7.5 km per pixel). MOC returned more than 240,000 images spanning portions of 4.8 Martian years, from September 1997 and November 2006.[6] A high resolution image from MOC covers a distance of either 1.5 or 3.1 km long. Often, a picture will be smaller than this because it has been cut to just show a certain feature. These high resolution images may cover features 3 to 10 km long. When a high resolution image is taken, a context image is taken as well. The context image shows the image footprint of the high resolution picture. Context images are typically 115.2 km square with 240 m/pixel resolution.
Source: 
- NASA data base on MGS 

ARSIA MONS BY NASA MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR

NASA MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR (1996-2007) 

Arsia Mons (17, 761 m  17 / - 58, 721ft / 11 mi)

MARS 

1. In Arsia Mons Spiral Cloud, June 19, 2001 

2. In Possible caves of Arsia Mons, HiRISE image, Laszlo P. Keszthelyi, August 9, 2007  

The mountain
Arsia Mons (20,000 m / 20 km - 63, 360ft / 12mi) is the southernmost of three volcanos with Ascraeus Mons, and Pavonis Mons (collectively known as Tharsis Montes) on the Tharsis bulge near the equator of the planet Mars, the tallest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, is to its northwest. Arsia Mons was named by Giovanni Schiaparelli after the legendary Roman forest of Arsia Silva.
Arsia Mons is a shield volcano with a relatively low slope and a massive caldera at its summit. It is  large enough to cover the state of New Mexico.

The caldera of Arsia Mons was formed when the mountain collapsed in on itself after its reservoir of magma was exhausted. There are many other geologic collapse features on the mountain's flanks.
The caldera floor formed around 150 millions years ago.
One of the benefits of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Extended Mission is the opportunity to observe how the planet's weather changes during a second full martian year. The picture  of Arsia Mons  (photo 1 above) was taken June 19, 2001  southern spring equinox occurred the same day. On this particular day (the first day of Spring), the MOC wide angle cameras documented an unusual spiral-shaped cloud within the 110 km (68 mi) diameter caldera- the summit crater- of the giant volcano. Because the cloud is bright both in the red and blue images acquired by the wide angle cameras, it probably consisted mostly of fine dust grains. The cloud's spin may have been induced by winds off the inner slopes of the volcano's caldera walls resulting from the temperature differences between the walls and the caldera floor, or by a vortex as winds blew up and over the caldera. Similar spiral clouds were seen inside the caldera for several days; we don't know if this was a single cloud that persisted throughout that time or one that regenerated each afternoon. Sunlight illuminates this scene from the left/upper left.

Dark pits on some of the Martian volcanoes have been speculated to be entrances into caves . A HiRISE image (cf. photo 2 above), looking essentially straight down, saw only darkness in this pit. This time the pit was imaged from the west. Since the picture was taken at about 2:30 p.m. local (Mars) time,  August 9, 2007, the sun was also shining from the west. We can see the eastern wall of the pit catching the sunlight. This confirms that this pit is essentially a vertical shaft cut through the lava flows on the flank of the volcano. Such pits form on similar volcanoes in Hawaii and are called "pit craters." They generally do not connect to long open caverns but are the result of deep underground collapse. From the shadow of the rim cast onto the wall of the pit NASA could calculate that the pit is at least 178 meters - 584 feet deep. The pit is 150 x 157 meters (492 x 515 feet) across. 

The mission
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was an American robotic spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 7, 1996. Mars Global Surveyor was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface. As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed monitoring relay for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and it helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry.
It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2 November 2006, the spacecraft failed to respond to messages and commands. A faint signal was detected three days later which indicated that it had gone into safe mode. Attempts to recontact the spacecraft and resolve the problem failed, and NASA officially ended the mission in January 2007.
The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science investigation used 3 instruments: a narrow angle camera that took (black-and-white) high resolution images (usually 1.5 to 12 m per pixel) and red and blue wide angle pictures for context (240 m per pixel) and daily global imaging (7.5 km per pixel). MOC returned more than 240,000 images spanning portions of 4.8 Martian years, from September 1997 and November 2006.[6] A high resolution image from MOC covers a distance of either 1.5 or 3.1 km long. Often, a picture will be smaller than this because it has been cut to just show a certain feature. These high resolution images may cover features 3 to 10 km long. When a high resolution image is taken, a context image is taken as well. The context image shows the image footprint of the high resolution picture. Context images are typically 115.2 km square with 240 m/pixel resolution.

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...

by Francis Rousseau 

EUROBEA MONS BY NASA VOYAGER 1 MISSION

NASA VOYAGER I MISSION (1977-2012)

Eurobea Montes (10, 500 m /34, 448 ft -  10, 5 km -  6,5 mi) 

Io (Jupiter's moon)

1.  In Voyager 1 view of Euboea Montes; the main massif is to upper right of center;  the dark oval to its lower left is Creidne Patera. North is at top,   from NASA's image PIA00328, 1 march 1979

 2  In Voyager 1 view of two of Io's ten highest peaks, Euboea Montes, just below upper left, and Haemus Montes, at lower right  © NASA's image PIA00328, 1 march 1979

The mountain 

Eurobea Montes (10, 500 m /34, 448 ft -  10, 5 km -  6,5 mi)  is a mountain on Io, on of the moons of Jupiter. Its coordinates are at 48.89°S 338.77°W.  Euboea Montes is rugby ball shaped (175 km by 240 km), located about 40 kilometers east of Creidne Patera caldera.  There is a curved ridge crest which divides Euboea Montes into two sections: the steep, southern flank with an uneven surface of rounded mounds and the smoother, northern flank sloping about 6° to the northwest. At the base of the northern flank is a thick, ridged deposit with rounded margins.

Schenk and Bulmer used their observations of NASA Voyager 1 images, measurements of heights on the digital elevation map generated from the images, and analogies to Earth structures to characterize Euboea Montes. According to them, the mountain is one block of crustal material, due to its polygonal, relatively intact shape. The block was raised and tilted (by about 6°) by thrust faulting. This uplift led to a massive landslide along the mountain's northern flank.
This scenario is directly tied to the recycling of Io's crust. Older crustal pieces are forced to sink as newer material is thrust above them. This old volcanic crustal material is compressed laterally as it sinks. Schenk and Bulmer argue that this global compression on Io is at least partially relieved by thrust faulting and uplift of large crustal blocks. On Earth, a similar mechanism exists, for example in the Black Hills of Dakota.

Schenk and M. H. Bulmer identify the deposit of a possible landslide off Euboea Montes. The thick deposit at the northern flank is interpreted to be from a landslide, and they further point to the shape of the northern flank as evidence for slope failure. The estimated volume of the debris apron is about 25,000 km3. If this is true, then Euboea Montes has arguably one of the largest debris aprons in the Solar System, of a size similar to those formed by landslides in Valles Marineris, around Olympus Mons on Mars, or submarine landslides on Earth.

The imager 
The Voyager program is a continuing American scientific program that employs two robotic probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, to study the outer Solar System. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and are now exploring the outer boundary of the heliosphere in interstellar space. Although their original mission was to study only the planetary systems of Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 continued on to Uranus and Neptune, and both Voyagers are now tasked with exploring interstellar space. Their mission has been extended three times, and both probes continue to collect and relay useful scientific data. Neither Uranus nor Neptune has been visited by any probe other than Voyager 2.
On August 25, 2012, data from Voyager 1 indicated that it had become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, traveling "further than anyone, or anything, in history".
As of 2013, Voyager 1 was moving with a velocity of 17 kilometers per second (11 mi/s) relative to the Sun. Voyager 2 is expected to enter interstellar space by 2016, and its plasma spectrometer should provide the first direct measurements of the density and temperature of the interstellar plasma.
Data and photographs collected by the Voyagers' cameras, magnetometers, and other instruments revealed previously unknown details about each of the giant planets and their moons. Close-up images from the spacecraft charted Jupiter’s complex cloud forms, winds, and storm systems and discovered volcanic activity on its moon Io. Saturn’s rings were found to have enigmatic braids, kinks, and spokes and to be accompanied by a myriad of "ringlets." At Uranus Voyager 2 discovered a substantial magnetic field around the planet and 10 additional moons. Its flyby of Neptune uncovered three complete rings and six hitherto unknown moons as well as a planetary magnetic field and complex, widely distributed auroras. Voyager 2 is still the only spacecraft to have visited the ice giants.
The Voyager spacecrafts were built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and they were funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which also funded their launchings from Cape Canaveral, Florida, their tracking, and everything else concerning the space probes due the radioactive materials on board the spacecraft.