Olympus Mons Olympus Mons Olympus Mons (; Latin for Mount Olympus) is a very large shield volcano on the planet Mars. The volcano has a height of nearly 25 km (13.6 mi or 72,000 ft) as measured by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA). Olympus Mons is about two and a half times Mount Everest's height above sea level. It is the largest volcano, the tallest planetary mountain, and the second tallest mountain in the Solar System compared to Rheasilvia on Vesta. It is the youngest of the large volcanoes on Mars, having formed during Mars's Hesperian Period. It had been known
Tharsis Montes is about across and stands above the ocean floor. The Tharsis Montes volcanoes lie near the equator, along the crest of a vast volcanic plateau called the Tharsis region or Tharsis bulge. The Tharsis region is thousands of kilometers across and averages nearly above the mean elevation of the planet. Olympus Mons, the tallest known mountain in the Solar System, is located about northwest of the Tharsis Montes, at the edge of the Tharsis region. The Tharsis Montes were discovered by the Mariner 9 spacecraft in 1971. They were among the few surface features visible as the spacecraft entered orbit