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- MAGELLAN PROJECT OFFICE
-
- MIT ID: GSDRP.1;2
- JPL ID: P-40144
- Date: 5/4/92
-
- These images display the meter-scale roughness of the Venus surface
- (characterized by its root-mean-square average slope), as observed by
- the Magellan radar altimeter. The lightest shades locate areas having
- the steepest values of average slope, while darker shades indicate areas
- that are smoother. The upper image shows that part of the planet
- between 69 degrees north and 69 degrees south latitude in Mercator
- projection; beneath it are the two polar regions covering latitudes
- above 44 degrees in stereographic projection. Easterly longitudes run
- across the Mercator map from left to right, and around the periphery of
- the polar stereographic projections. Resolution of the surface varies
- with spacecraft altitude, being about 10 kilometers near the equator and
- degrading to as much as 25 kilometers at high latitudes. Black areas
- indicate where data had not yet been obtained by Magellan after the
- first eight months of operation.
-
- There is a tendency for elevated regions, e.g. the Maxwell Montes (left
- of the data gap at top center) and Aphrodite Terra (along the equator at
- right), to show steeper meter-scale slopes than are typical of lower-
- lying areas. The steeper slopes probably result from disruption of the
- surface associated with tectonic activity in these regions. Note the
- large 2300-kilometer (1400-mile) diameter circular feature (Artemis
- Chasma) in the lower right of the Mercator image. This feature is
- thought to have been caused by a gigantic plume of heated rock rising
- from the planet's interior. The data shown here were analyzed and
- projected at the Center for Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of
- Technology.
-