Mt Everest is just under 5.5miles high. Olympus Mons on Mars is 16 miles high. Why aren’t there much larger mountains on Earth? What’s the highest a mountain can go on Earth?
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Gravity, basically. The gravity on Earth is strong than on mars. So Martian mountains can grow much taller.
The taller a mountain gets the heavier it gets. And when a mountain gets heavier and heavier two things will happen.
1. it can collapse under it’s own weight and crumple away.
2. it will start to sink back down into the Earth.
The force of Earth’s gravity we have end up with a theoretical max high of around 10 miles. But based on the way mountains form there’s basically no way that could happen.
Fun fact that’s probably a coincidence gravity on Mars is about 38% as strong as it is on Earth. Take Mt Everest’s height of 5.5 miles and divide by .38 and you get 14.5 miles. Pretty close to the size of Olympus Mons all things considered.
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