Name: William H.
Status: Other
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
We are a third grade class at Hunting Ridge School. We just saw a computer
image of mars on a scientific visualization tool. We saw Olympus Mons and
measured its diameter to be about 550 km. This is a very interesting
feature on Mars. How many volcanoes does Mars have? Could there have been
water on Olympus Mons at one time? What is the gravity on Mars? How deep
is Olympus Mons? What was the first space ship to go to Mars?
Replies:
Olympus Mons is about 80,000 ft high, much taller than any terrestrial
mountain or volcano. Many planetary scientists believe there once was
surface water on Mars, enough to cause the extensive surface erosion we see
today, not just the small polar icecaps (that are mostly frozen CO2, dry
ice). Planetary probes sent to Mars: Mariner 4, 6, and 7 did fly-bys in
the late 60's; Mariner 9 and the Soviets' Mars 2 and 3 began orbiting Mars
in 1971-- the Soviet craft ejected soft landers; the first Viking landed in
1976 (sounds like Eric the Red..), the two Viking landers sent back all
those famous close-ups of the surface. If you check NASA's Spacelink BBS
(reachable through NEWTON: go to 4) Network in the main menu you should
find much more information on Mars and lots of stuff about the upcoming
Mission to Mars.
NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators, sponsored and operated by Argonne National Laboratory's Educational Programs, Andrew Skipor, Ph.D., Head of Educational Programs.
