If you thought Mount Everest is big, you got to read this article. In the list of the tallest mountains in the solar system, Mt. Everest comes in at #13 and it is not even the tallest one on earth. The tallest mountain on earth is Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Much of Mauna Kea is below sea level. When measured from its oceanic base, its height is 33,100 ft (10,100 m), more than twice Mount Everest’s base-to-peak height of 11,980 to 15,260 ft (3,650 to 4,650 m), making it the tallest mountain on Earth. Here are Top 10 Tallest Mountains in the Solar System.
10. Limb Mountain, Oberon
World: Oberon (Moon of Uranus)
Height: 11 km (7 mi) (approx.)
Origin: Impact
Oberon, also designated Uranus IV, is the outermost major moon of the planet Uranus. It is the second-largest and second most massive of the Uranian moons, and the ninth most massive moon in the Solar System. A peak with a height of about 11 km was observed in some Voyager images near the south-eastern limb of Oberon, which may be the central peak of a large impact basin with a diameter of about 375 km. Oberon’s surface is intersected by a system of canyons.
9. Arsia Mons, Mars
World: Mars
Height: 11.7 km (7.3 mi)
Origin: Volcanic
Arsia Mons is the southernmost of three volcanos on the Tharsis bulge near the equator of the planet Mars. The tallest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons, is to its northwest. Its name comes from a corresponding albedo feature on a map by Giovanni Schiaparelli, which he named in turn 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. The caldera is 108 to 138 km (67 to 86 mi) across. Recent work provides evidence for glaciers on Arsia Mons at both high and low elevations. As of 2007 seven putative cave entrances, have been identified in satellite imagery of the flanks of Arsia Mons.
8. Euboea Montes, Lo
World: Io (Jupiter’s moon)
Height: 10.3 to 13.4 km (6.4 to 8.3 mi)
Origin: Tectonic
Euboea Montes is a mountain on Io, a moon of Jupiter. It was formed by tilting of a crustal block, with subsequent modification by a very large landslide. It is football-shaped.
7. Elysium Mons, Mars
World: Mars
Height: 12.6 km (7.8 mi)
Origin: Volcanic
Elysium Mons is a volcano on Mars located in the volcanic province Elysium in the Martian eastern hemisphere. It stands above the surrounding lava plains. Its diameter is about 240 km (150 mi), with a summit caldera of about 14 km (8.7 mi) across. Elysium Mons was discovered in 1972 in images returned by the Mariner 9 orbiter.
6. Ionian Mons East Ridge, Io
World: Io (Jupiter’s moon)
Height: 12.7 km (7.9 mi)
Origin: Techtonic
The second tallest mountain in Io satellite has the form of a curved double ridge. It has a typical canonical form.
5. Ascraeus Mons, Mars
World: Mars
Height: 14.9 km (9.3 mi)
Origin: Volcanic
Ascraeus Mons is a large shield volcano located in the Tharsis region of the planet Mars. It is the northernmost and tallest of three shield volcanoes collectively known as the Tharsis Montes. Ascraeus Mons was discovered by the Mariner 9 spacecraft in 1971. The volcano was originally called North Spot because it was the northernmost of only four spots visible on the surface due to a global dust storm that was then enshrouding the planet. As the dust cleared, the spots were revealed to be extremely tall volcanoes whose summits had projected above the dust-laden, lower atmosphere. The volcano’s name officially became Ascraeus Mons in 1973.
4. Boösaule Montes, Io
World: Io (Jupiter’s moon)
Height: 17.5 to 18.2 km (10.9 to 11.3 mi)
Origin: Tectonic
More than 135 mountains have been identified on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Io. Despite the extensive active volcanism taking place on Io, most mountains on Io are formed through tectonic processes. These structures average 6 km (4 mi) in height and reach a maximum of 17.5 ± 1.5 km (10.9 ± 1 mi) at South Boösaule Montes. Mountains often appear as large (the average mountain is 157 km (98 mi) long), isolated structures with no apparent global tectonic patterns outlined, in contrast to the situation on Earth.
3. Equatorial Ridge, Iapetus
World: Iapetus (Saturn’s moon)
Height: 20 km (12 mi)
Origin: Uncertain
Iapetus is the third-largest natural satellite of Saturn, eleventh-largest in the Solar System. Iapetus is best known for its dramatic ‘two-tone’ coloration, but discoveries by the Cassini mission in 2007 have revealed several other unusual features, such as a massive equatorial ridge that runs three-quarters of the way around Iapetus. The equatorial ridge runs along the equator and it is about 1,300 km long, 20 km wide, and 13 km high. Some peaks in the ridge rise more than 20 km above the surrounding plains. It is not clear how the ridge formed. One difficulty is to explain why it follows the equator almost perfectly. There are at least four current hypotheses, but none of them explains why the ridge is confined to the equator.
2. Olympus Mons, Mars
World: Mars
Height: 21.9 km (14 mi)
Origin: Volcanic
Olympus Mons is a very large shield volcano on the planet Mars. It has a height of nearly 22 km (14 mi). Olympus Mons stands almost three 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 Amazonian Period. It had been known to astronomers since the late 19th century. Its mountainous nature was suspected well before space probes confirmed its identity as a mountain.
1. Rheasilvia Central Peak, Vesta
World: Vesta (asteroid)
Height: 22 km (14 mi)
Origin: Impact
Rheasilvia is the most prominent surface feature on the asteroid Vesta and is believed to be an impact crater. It is 505 kilometers (314 mi) in diameter, which is 90% the diameter of Vesta itself and covers most of the southern hemisphere. It was discovered in Hubble images in 1997, but was not named until the arrival of the Dawn spacecraft in 2011. It is named after Rhea Silvia, a mythological vestal virgin, and mother of the founders of Rome.
It is estimated that the impact responsible excavated about 1% of the volume of Vesta, and it is likely that the Vesta family and V-type asteroids are the products of this collision. If this is the case, then the fact that 10-km fragments have survived bombardment until the present indicates that the crater is at most about 1 billion years old.
