You've heard of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but as we learn more about our universe, the more we find things to make your jaw drop. Its a pity so few people know about them. In 1999, the magazine Astronomy named 7 Wonders of the Solar System. Let's take a look at one of them.
Imagine a mountain that soared so high Everest was a mere blip beside it. A peak so wide that the entire United Kingdom could vanish within its sprawling, impossible mass. A mountain that had its peak permanently outside its planet’s atmosphere, so high no clouds could ever reach it. Welcome to Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest peak known to man.
A long-dead shield volcano, Mons sits on the Martian equator, surrounded by other volcanoes hundreds of times larger than anything on Earth. The cones abruptly rise from a flat, desolate plain, suddenly looming 16 miles into the sky, dominating everything around them. Their size is almost beyond comprehension. Olympus Mons alone could swallow the US State of Arizona whole. Its weight is so vast that it has caused the Martian crust to subside, leaving a strange ‘moat’ around Mons a staggering 2 km deep.
And that's just one of the seven! Urban Ghosts tells us about all of the 7 Wonders of the Solar System, plus three more that should have been included.
(Image credit: Flickr user Kevin Gill)