Continents
The table below presents a comparison of continents on Earth and Mars.
Earth
An image of the Earth's crust showing the continents as well as
undersea topography.
Click on image for full size (630K
GIF)
Map courtesy of the National Geographic Data Center/ U.S.G.S.
There are seven land masses on Earth called continents. Continents are raised above the rest
of a planet's crust. On Earth, the continents are about 4.6 km
above the ocean floor on average. Earth's
continents are (from largest to smallest) are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.
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Mars
Two views of the surface of Mars. The upper image shows the
Highlands, while the lower image shows the Tharsis Ridge.
Click on image for full size version (160K GIF)
Image from Mars Global Surveyor, NASA/JPL
There are two regions on Mars which seem to be higher than the rest of
the crust.
The first is a large region in the lower half of the planet
called the Highlands. The other region is known as the
Tharsis Ridge or Tharsis Bulge. It is the size of
a small continent on Earth. These two features may thought of as the continents of Mars.
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