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Credit & Copyright: Soviet Planetary Exploration Program,
Venera 13;
Processing & Copyright: Donald Mitchell & Michael Carroll (used with permission)
Explanation:
If you could stand on
Venus
-- what would you see?
Pictured is the view from Venera 13, a robotic
Soviet lander which parachuted
and
air-braked down through the thick Venusian atmosphere in March of 1982.
The desolate landscape it saw included flat rocks,
vast empty terrain, and a featureless sky above
Phoebe Regio near
Venus' equator.
On the lower left is the spacecraft's
penetrometer used to make scientific measurements,
while the light piece on the right is part of an ejected lens-cap.
Enduring
temperatures near 450 degrees
Celsius and
pressures
75 times that on Earth, the hardened
Venera spacecraft lasted only about two hours.
Although data from
Venera 13
was beamed across the inner
Solar System
almost 40 years ago, digital processing and merging of
Venera's unusual images continues even today.
Recent analyses of
infrared measurements taken by
ESA's orbiting
Venus Express spacecraft indicate that active
volcanoes may currently exist on Venus.
Processing & Copyright: Donald Mitchell & Michael Carroll (used with permission)
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Venus
Publications with words: Venus
See also: