Venus Imagery

(56k GIF)
This global view of the surface of Venus is centered at 180 degrees east longitude. Magellan synthetic aperture radar mosaics from the full two years of Magellan radar mapping are mapped onto a computer-simulated globe to create this image. Magellan obtained coverage of 98% of the surface of Venus. Remaining gaps are filled with data from previous Venus missions: the Venera 15/16 radar and Pioneer-Venus Orbiter altimetry. Simulated color is used to enhance small-scale structure. The simulated hues are based on color images recorded by the Venera 13/14 landing craft. The twisting bright features that cross the globe from the lower left toward the upper right are the highly fractured mountains and canyons of the eastern Aphrodite highland. Just to the right of center is the Atla region, dominated by three large volcanoes: Sapas, Maat and Ozza Montes. The image was produced by the Solar System visualization project and the Magellan Science team at the JPL Multimission Image Processing Laboratory.

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Sapas Mons is displayed in the center of this computer-generated three-dimensional perspective view of the surface of Venus. The viewpoint is located 527 kilometers (327 miles) northwest of Sapas Mons at an elevation of 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the terrain. Lava flows extend for hundreds of kilometers across the fractured plains shown in the foreground to the base of Sapas Mons. The view is to the southeast with Sapas Mons appearing at the center with Maat Mons located in the background on the horizon. Sapas Mons, a volcano 400 kilometers (248 miles) across and 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) high is located at approximately 8 degrees north latitude, 199 degrees east longitude, on the western edge of Atla Regio. Its peak sits at an elevation of 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) above the planet's mean elevation. Sapas Mons is named for a Phoenician goddess. The vertical scale in this perspective has been exaggerated 10 times. Rays cast in a computer intersect the surface to create a three-dimensional perspective view. Simulated color and a digital elevation map developed by the U.S. Geological Survey are used to enhance small-scale structure. The simulated hues are based on color images recorded by the Soviet Venera 13 and 14 spacecraft. The image was produced by the Solar System Visualization project and the Magellan Science team at the JPL Multimission Image Processing Laboratory and is a single frame from a video released at the April 22, 1992 news conference.

(193k GIF)
This Magellan image mosaic shows the largest (280 kilometer in diameter [174 miles]) impact crater known to exist on Venus. The crater is located to the north of Aphrodite Terra and to the east of Eistla Regio at 12.5 degrees north latitude and 57.2 degrees east longitude. The official name for the crater is for Margaret Mead--the American Anthropologist (1901-1978).
Mead is a multi-ring crater with its innermost, concentric scarp interpreted to be the rim of the original crater cavity. The presence of hummocky, radar-bright ejecta that crosses the radar-dark floor terrace and adjacent outer rim scarp suggests that the floor terrace is a giant rotated block that is concentric to, but lies outside of , the original crater cavity. The flat, somewhat brighter inner floor of Mead is interpreted to result from considerable infilling of the original crater cavity by impact melt and/or by volcanic lavas. Radar illumination is from left to right.

View of surface from Russian Venera spacecraft.

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vp 8/10/96