Mind Blown

There's a volcano on Mars that's three times as tall as Mount Everest.

Around 4000 brave souls are known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. When they describe the experience, these individuals commonly say it was like standing on top of the world. Given that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on our planet, they have! Located in the majestic Himalayas, MountEverest rises almost 9 kilometres above 9sea level, and its summit spans the border between Nepal and China. This mountain is so big, it needs two countries to live in.

By the way, there are actually taller mountains on Earth like the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. But since a large portion of this lies under the ocean, Mount Everest takes the title of the tallest landmass above the sea.

Amazingly, our red neighbour, Mars, has a volcano three times taller than Mount Everest! What a show-off.

Olympus Mons is the almost unimaginably gigantic Martian volcano. It's bigger than the US state of Arizona and almost as big as France! This volcano is so huge that it sticks up out of Mars's atmosphere.

This massive formation is a shield volcano, meaning that it was created by lava slowly flowing down its sides. Because of this, Olympus Mons has a low, squat appearance, curving with the planet. If you were to climb it, you'd feel like you were walking normally the whole time. The same couldn't be said if you were climbing Mount Everest, where it would very much feel like an ascent.

Its gargantuan size can also be blamed on a combination of Mars's lower surface gravity and the high eruption rates. It's a fairly young volcano too and, as such, may still be active, meaning potentially more Martian fireworks ahead.