Mars built a volcano so wide it would swallow a country.
Mars built a volcano so wide it would swallow a country. Olympus Mons stretches roughly 600 kilometres across its base — drop it over France and it would cover the entire nation. Rise up from that base and you climb about 22 kilometres before you reach the summit. That is two and a half times the height of Everest. What allowed this to grow so enormous? Two things, working together over billions of years. Mars has weaker gravity than Earth, so lava can pile higher before it collapses under its own weight. And Mars has no moving tectonic plates, so the crust sat still above the same hotspot, letting layer after layer of runny lava quietly stack up. No explosive blasts. No drama. Just slow, patient, geological patience — and the result is the largest volcano we have ever found anywhere in the solar system. Follow Deep Field Vault for more of the universe.