Martian Mt. Sharp vs. Mt. McKinley

Philip Bump put together this great comparison of Earth's Mt. McKinley and Mars' Mt. Sharp (as photographed by the Curiosity rover).

Officially, it's Aeolis Mons, and it stands 18,000 feet above the crater floor. Here's how that compares to Mount McKinley, America's tallest peak at 20,320 feet. The sea levels / floor levels are roughly comparable. But this is just an approximation. Do not make wagers based on this.

Via pbump.net

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: curiosity • Earth • geography • Mars • mountains • photos • Science • Space

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Ramone

It also may be worth noting that since Mars has no tectonic activity, it’s yet not known how Mt. Sharp was formed.
- TheMudshark
  
  Since it´s right beside a crater, couldn´t it have been formed by the impact?
- Ramone
  
  Actually, never mind ;)
  http://io9.com/5933638/plate-tectonics-confirmed-on-mars
rrh

Since it’s shorter, plus there’s lower gravity on Mars, obviously I’d have an easier time climbing it.
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  But you will be lugging your air, batteries, food and a pressurized habitat all the way.
http://echofox3.blogspot.com efergus3

Need more cowbell…
millie fink

I wish more people would call that mountain what it’s called when you go there–Denali.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  cf. Sagarmatha/Chomolungma.
http://jere7my.livejournal.com jere7my

The comparison isn’t quite perfect, since McKinley isn’t sitting at sea level: “McKinley sits atop a sloping plain with elevations from 300 metres (1,000 ft) to 900 metres (3,000 ft), for a base-to-peak height of 5,300 to 5,900 metres (17,000 to 19,000 ft).” Aeolis Mons (“Mount Windy”, aka Mount Sharp), at 18,000 feet, is comparable in size, depending on how you measure base-to-peak heights.
shinymetalthing

To no one in particular… Don’t nitpick this… it is an observational comparison. The thought isn’t that it is the same measurements, but how eerily similar it is to our planet. How amazing is it that just because our planet is the correct distance from the sun and has all the right elements, we can type opinions about it on the internet? (Instead of our planet looking like Mars.)
- http://jere7my.livejournal.com jere7my
  
  Actually, my point was that they are the same measurements. :P