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Venera 15
| title |
Venera 15 |
| date |
06.02.1983 |
| description |
Venera 15 and Venera 16 were a pair of dedicated radar mappers designed to extend the studies begun by the American Pioneer Venus Orbiter in constructing a detailed map of the surface down to a resolution of about 1 to 2 kilometers. For these missions, Soviet engineers lengthened the central bus of the earlier Veneras (by 1 meter), installed much larger solar batteries, and attached a large side-looking radar antenna in place of the descent lander module on the earlier spacecraft. Venera 15 carried out two midcourse corrections (on 10 June 1983 and 1 October 1983) before successfully entering orbit around Venus at 03:05 UT on 10 October. Initial orbital parameters were 1,000 x 65,000 kilometers at 87° inclination -- that is, a near-polar orbit. The spacecraft's mapping operations began six days after entering orbit over the north pole. Because of the nature of the spacecraft's orbit, the two orbiters mapped only the area from 30° north latitude to the pole -- about 115 million square kilometers -- before the mission was completed on 10 July 1984. |
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Venus - Crater Golubkina
| Title |
Venus - Crater Golubkina |
| Description |
This Magellan image mosaic shows the impact crater Golubkina, first identified in Soviet Venera 15/16 data. The crater is named after Anna Golubkina (1864-1927), a Soviet sculptor. The crater is about 34 kilometers (20.4 miles) across, similar to the size of the West Clearwater impact structure in Canada. The crater Golubkina is located at about 60.5 degrees north latitude, 286.7 degrees east longitude. Magellan data reveal that Golubkina has many characteristics typical of craters formed by a meteorite impact including terraced inner walls, a central peak, and radar bright rough ejecta surrounding the crater. The extreme darkness of the crater floor indicates a smooth surface, perhaps formed by the pounding of lava flows in the crater floor as seen in many lunar impact craters. The radar bright ejecta surrounding the crater indicates a relatively fresh or young crater. Craters with central peaks in the Soviet data range in size from about 10.60 km (6.36 miles) across. The largest crater identified in the Soviet Venera data is 140 km (84 miles) in diameter. This Magellan image strip is approximately 20 km (12 miles) wide and this piece of the image is approximately 100 km (62 miles) long. The image is a mosaic of two orbits obtained in the first Magellan radar test and played back to Earth to the Deep Space Network stations near Goldstone, Calif. and Canberra, Australia, respectively. The resolution of this image is approximately 120 meters (400 feet). The see-saw margins result from the offset of individual radar frames obtained along the orbit. The spacecraft moved from the north (top) to the south, looking to the left. |
| Date |
08.24.1990 |
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Venus - Computer Simulated G
…
PIA00271
Sol (our sun)
Imaging Radar
| Title |
Venus - Computer Simulated Global View of the Northern Hemisphere |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
The northern hemisphere is displayed in this global view of the surface of Venus. The north pole is at the center of the image, with 0 degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees, 270 degrees east longitudes at the 6, 3, 12, and 9 o'clock positions, respectively, of an imaginary clock face. Magellan synthetic aperture radar mosaics from the three eight-month cycles of Magellan radar mapping are mapped onto a computer-simulated globe to create this image. Magellan obtained coverage of 98 percent of the surface of Venus. Remaining gaps are filled with data from previous missions, (the Soviet Venera 15 and 16 radar and Pioneer Venus Orbiter altimetry) and data from Earth-based radar observations from the Arecibo radio telescope. Simulated color is used to enhance small-scale structures. The simulated hues are based on color images recorded by the Venera 13 and 14 landing craft. Maxwell Montes, the planet's highest mountain at 11 kilometers (6.6 miles) above the average elevation, is the bright feature in the lower center of the image. Other terrain types visible in this image include tessera, ridge belts, lava flows, impact craters and coronae. The image was produced by the Solar System Visualization Project and the Magellan Science team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Multimission Image Processing Laboratory. The Magellan mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science. |
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Venus - Computer Simulated G
…
PIA00270
Sol (our sun)
Imaging Radar
| Title |
Venus - Computer Simulated Global View Centered at 90 Degrees East Longitude |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This global view of the surface of Venus is centered at 90 degrees east longitude. Magellan synthetic aperture radar mosaics from the three eight-month cycles of Magellan radar mapping are mapped onto a computer-simulated globe to create this image. Magellan obtained coverage of 98 percent of the surface of Venus. Remaining gaps are filled with data from previous Venus missions -- the Venera 15 and 16 radar and Pioneer-Venus Orbiter altimetry -- and data from Earth-based radar observations from the Arecibo radio telescope. Simulated color is used to enhance small-scale structures. The simulated hues are based on color images obtained by the Venera 13 and 14 landing craft. The bright feature near the center of the image is Ovda Regio, a mountainous region in the western portion of the great Aphrodite equatorial highland. The dark areas scattered across the Venusian plains consist of extremely smooth deposits associated with large meteorite impacts. The image was produced by the Solar System Visualization Project and the Magellan Science team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Multimission Image Processing Laboratory. The Magellan mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science. |
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