Mount Sharp is a large mountain in the centre of Gale crater on Mars, where the Curiosity rover landed a few days ago. Composed of many sedimentary layers, it provides a geological record of Mars’ history going back billions of years. But how large is it? It might be hard to tell from the initial raw images sent back by Curiosity so far, but it is big, really big.
At about 5.5 kilometres (3.4 miles) tall, it is larger than any mountain in the United States except for Mount McKinley. In the next days and weeks, higher-resolution and colour images will be taken by Curiosity, and as Mount Sharp is a primary target of the rover (yes, it will go mountain climbing!), it should be quite an adventure.