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Jun 23, 2013
Venus' Once Molten Surface
Image Credit & Copyright: Astronomy Picture of the Day -- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Venus' Once Molten Surface
Image Credit & Copyright: Astronomy Picture of the Day -- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
If you could look across Venus with radar eyes, what might you see?
This computer reconstruction of the surface of
Venus
was created from data from the
Magellan spacecraft.
Magellan orbited Venus and used
radar to map our
neighboring
planet's
surface between 1990 and 1994.
Magellan found many
interesting surface features,
including the large circular domes,
typically 25-kilometers across, that are depicted above.
Volcanism
is thought to have created the
domes, although the precise mechanism remains unknown.
Venus' surface is so hot and
hostile that no surface probe
has lasted
more than a few minutes.
