home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Space & Astronomy
/
Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso
/
pc
/
text
/
jplnews2
/
1383.pr
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-05-03
|
3KB
|
59 lines
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
For Release
July 26
Contact: Jim Doyle
Public Information Office
(818) 354-5011
By the end of July the Magellan spacecraft will have circled
Venus 2,351 times and will have traveled 75 million miles around
the planet in its mapping mission, said Magellan Project
Scientist Dr. Steve Saunders at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
One complete circuit of Venus takes eight months, the length
of one Venus day. Magellan is in the second of at least seven
planned cycles in which it will continue to observe the complex
surface of Venus.
Magellan has collected radar images of nearly 90 percent of
the planet thus far. The data set is double the amount of all
other image data collected in the U.S. planetary program to date,
Saunders said.
With each day's images the Magellan scientists have an
opportunity to search the data for evidence of volcanic activity
by comparing new images with those taken eight months previously
during the first cycle.
"Just as on Earth, it is very likely that somewhere on the
planet a volcano is erupting at any given time; the problem is to
find it," Saunders said.
Venus has been revealed as a planet with at least as complex
a geologic record as Earth, with many of the same geologic
processes revealed on its surface, he said. Volcanism is the
dominant process, seen in many forms on the plains.
"Volcanism, the eruption of molten rock onto the surface,
and tectonism, or faulting and folding of crustal rocks, on Venus
act much like erosion by running water on Earth to modify the
landscape," he said.
"We see evidence of continuing volcanism and tectonism
everywhere on the planet, in the vast lava floods and the
fractures, faults and ridge belts of the volcanic plains."
He added that fractured and faulted older terrains also are
seen. Tessera, a term for highly-fractured terrains, probably
represent the oldest rocks, but the deformation that has so
completely distorted them appears to be continuing at present.
"Now the search by Magellan continues for evidence that
Earth's sister planet remains today as violent as the images
suggest it has been in the recent past," Saunders said.
_____
#1383
EDITORS' NOTE: Three new black & white images of Venus are
available to news media at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Public
Information Office (818) 354-5011.
d