MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Contact: Mary Hardin

IMAGE ADVISORYApril 20, 2000

NEW GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGE SHOWS OLYMPUS MONS

       A new image from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, currently orbiting Mars, shows a close-up view across the summit of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano known in our solar system.

       Olympus Mons is not an active volcano and the image shows that the area around the summit is covered by fine dust and pocked by small impact craters. It is roughly the height of three Mount Everests and is nearly 550 kilometers (340 miles) across. Despite its great height, the slopes of this volcano are only a few degrees -- a person would not really climb Olympus Mons, but simply walk uphill toward its summit.

       The Global Surveyor image is available at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/new, http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs or http://www.msss.com .

       Mars Global Surveyor is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

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