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Cosmic Conjunction
| title |
Cosmic Conjunction |
| description |
Five planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - gather over the ancient Stonehenge monument in England. *Image Copyright*: Philip Perkins |
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Pioneering Venus
| title |
Pioneering Venus |
| description |
An ultraviolet image of Venus' clouds as seen by the Pioneer Venus orbiter in 1979. Pioneer Venus used an orbiter and several small probes to study the planet from above and within the clouds. This image is from the orbiter. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Venera 2
| title |
Venera 2 |
| date |
11.12.1965 |
| description |
Although the 3MV-3 and 3MV-4 type spacecraft were originally intended for Mars exploration, the Soviets re-equipped three of the series, left over from the 1964 Mars launch windows, for Venus exploration in 1965. This particular vehicle was scheduled to fly past the sunlit side of Venus at no more than a 40,000-kilometer range and take photographs. During the outbound flight, communications with the spacecraft were poor. Immediately before closest approach in late February 1966, ground control commanded to switch on all the onboard scientific instrumentation. o The closest approach to the planet was at 02:52 UT on 27 February 1966 at about a 24,000-kilometer range. After its flyby, when the spacecraft was supposed to relay back the collected information, ground control was unable to regain contact. Controllers finally gave up all attempts at communication on 4 March. Venera 2 eventually entered heliocentric orbit. Later investigation indicated that improper functioning of 40 thermal radiator elements caused a sharp increase in gas temperatures in the spacecraft. As a result, elements of the receiving and decoding units failed, the solar panels overheated, and contact was lost. Ironically, the scientific instruments may have collected valuable data, but none of it was ever transmitted back to Earth."Editor's Note: This mission profile was originally published in *Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958-2000*, by Asif A. Siddiqi, NASA Monographs in Aerospace History No. 24" |
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Venera 11
| title |
Venera 11 |
| date |
09.09.1978 |
| description |
Venera 11 was one of two identical probes (the other being Venera 12) that followed up on the highly successful Soviet missions to Venus in 1975. Veneras 11 and 12 differed from their predecessors principally in the fact each carried a flyby bus/lander combination instead of the previous orbiter/lander combination. Engineers reverted to the flyby combination partly because of the weight limitations of the 1978 launch window, but also because flyby probes afforded better transmission time for landers. Several of the scientific instruments were also modified and new ones added. Venera 11 arrived at Venus after two course corrections on 16 September and 17 December 1978. On 23 December 1978, the lander separated from the flyby probe and entered the Venusian atmosphere two days later. The lander probe safely landed on Venus at 03:24 UT on 15 December 1978 and then relayed 95 minutes of data from the surface. Landing coordinates were 14° south latitude and 299° longitude. The point of cutoff was determined by the range of visibility of the flyby probe. A soil-drilling instrument collected soil for chemical and physical analysis, but soil analysis was unsuccessful because the soil was not properly deposited to an examination container for analysis (probably due to leaking air that disturbed the soil). The lander also failed to take color panoramas of the Venusian surface due to a failure of the lens covers of the camera system to open. While extensive atmospheric data was later released, the Soviets have published relatively little data from surface measurements. The flyby probe entered heliocentric orbit after flying past the planet at a range of 35,000 kilometers. |
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Venera 14 Lander
| title |
Venera 14 Lander |
| date |
11.04.1981 |
| description |
Venera 14 was identical to its twin, Venera 13. The spacecraft carried out three midcourse corrections on the way to Venus: on 14 November 1981, 23 November 1981, and 25 February 1982. Russian sources indicate that one of the corrections was incorrect (probably the first) and could have jeopardized the mission. The lander probe separated from its flyby parent on 3 March 1982 before the entry cycle began. The probe's main parachute opened at an altitude of 62 to 63 kilometers, thus activating the atmospheric instruments. The parachute was released at an altitude of 47 kilometers, and the 760-kilogram lander fell to the surface using only the atmosphere as a retarding medium. The probe made safe contact with the Venusian surface at 07:00:10 UT on 3 March 1982 and continued with 57 minutes of transmissions. Landing coordinates were 13.25° south latitude and 310° longitude, about 1,000 kilometers from the Venera 13 landing site. As with its twin, Venera 14 returned color photographs of its surroundings and examined a soil sample (about 1 cubic centimeter taken from a 30-millimeter-deep sample). Soil was deposited in a chamber sealed off from the outside environment and was then progressively transferred through a series of chambers by blowing air until the sample was deposited in its final chamber with a temperature of only 30°C. Here it was examined by the x-ray fluorescence spectrometer. Temperature and pressure outside were considerably higher than at the Venera 13 site: 470°C and 93.5 atmospheres, respectively. The flyby probe, meanwhile, passed Venus at a range of 36,000 kilometers and entered heliocentric orbit, continuing to provide data on solar x-ray flares. It performed one trajectory change on 14 November 1982. |
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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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Mariner 1
| title |
Mariner 1 |
| date |
01.22.1962 |
| description |
After approval by NASA Headquarters in September 1961, JPL prepared three spacecraft based on the design of the Ranger Block I series (therefore named Mariner R) to fly by Venus in late 1962. Each spacecraft carried a modest suite (9 kilograms) of scientific instrumentation but had no imaging capability. The spacecraft included 54,000 components and was designed to maintain contact with Earth for 2,500 hours -- an ambitious goal given that the (still unsuccessful) Ranger was designed for only 65 hours of contact. Mariner 1 would have flown by Venus at a range of 29,000 kilometers on 8 December 1962, but due to an incorrect trajectory during launch, range safety had to destroy the booster and its payload at T+290 seconds. |
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Venera 9
| title |
Venera 9 |
| date |
06.08.1975 |
| description |
Venera 9 was the first of a new generation of Soviet space probes ('4V') designed to explore Venus. Launched by the more powerful Proton launch booster, the new spacecraft were nearly five times heavier than their predecessors. Each spacecraft comprised both an orbiter and a lander. The 2,300-kilogram orbiters (at Venus orbit insertion) were designed to spend their missions photographing the planet in ultraviolet light and conducting other scientific investigations. The landers, of a completely new design, employed aerodynamic braking during Venusian atmospheric entry and contained a panoramic photometer to take images of the surface. Without any apparent problems and with two trajectory corrections (on 16 June and 15 October), Venera 9's lander separated from its parent on 20 October 1975, and two days later, it hit Venus's turbulent atmosphere at a speed of 10.7 kilometers per hour. After using a series of parachutes, the lander set down on the planet's day side at 05:13 UT on 22 October. Landing coordinates were 32° north latitude and 291° longitude at the base of a hill near Beta Regio. During its 53 minutes of transmissions from the surface, Venera 9 took and transmitted the very first picture of the Venusian surface from a height of 90 centimeters. These were, in fact, the very first photos received of the surface of another planet. The lander was supposed to transmit a full 360° panorama, but because one of the two covers on the camera failed to release, only a 180° panorama was received. Illumination was akin to that of a cloudy day on Earth. The image clearly showed flat rocks strewn around the lander. The Venera 9 orbiter meanwhile entered a 1,500 x 111,700-kilometer orbit around the planet at 34°10' inclination and acted as a communications relay for the lander. It became the first spacecraft to go into orbit around Venus. The Soviets announced on 22 March 1976 that the orbiter's primary mission, which included using French-made ultraviolet cameras to obtain photographs in 1,200- kilometer swaths, had been fulfilled. |
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Mariner 10 Diagram
| title |
Mariner 10 Diagram |
| date |
11.03.1973 |
| description |
On November 3, 1973, the Mariner Venus/Mercury 1973 spacecraft - also known as Mariner 10 - was launched from Kennedy Space Center. It was the first spacecraft designed to use gravity assist. Three months after launch it flew by Venus, changed speed and trajectory, then crossed Mercury's orbit in March 1974. This photo identifies various parts of the spacecraft and the science instruments, which were used to study the atmospheric, surface, and physical characteristics of Venus and Mercury. This was the sixth in the series of Mariner spacecraft that explored the inner planets beginning in 1962. *Image Credit*: Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Terrestrial Planet Interiors
| title |
Terrestrial Planet Interiors |
| description |
*Mercury* Mercury has an average density of 5430 kilograms per cubic meter, which is second only to Earth among all the planets. It is estimated that the planet Mercury, like Earth, has a ferrous core with a size equivalent to two-thirds to three-fourths that of the planet's overall radius. The core is believed to be composed of an iron-nickel alloy covered by a mantle and surface crust. *Venus* It is believed that the composition of the planet Venus is similar to that of Earth. The planet crust extends to around 10-30 kilometers below the surface, under which the mantle reaches to a depth of some 3000 kilometers. The planet core comprises a liquid iron-nickel alloy. Average planet density is 5240 kilograms per cubic meter. *Earth* The Earth comprises three separate layers: a crust, a mantle, and a core (in descending order from the surface). The crust thickness averages 30 kilometers for land masses and 5 kilometers for seabeds. The mantle extends from just below the crust to some 2900 kilometers deep. The core below the mantle begins at a depth of around 5100 kilometers, and comprises an outer core (liquid iron-nickel alloy) and inner core (solid iron-nickel alloy). The crust is composed mainly of granite in the case of land masses and basalt in the case of seabeds. The mantle is composed primarily of peridotite and high-pressure minerals. Average planet density is 5520 kilograms per cubic meter. *Mars* Mars is roughly one-half the diameter of Earth. Due to its small size, it is believed that the martian center has cooled. Geological structure is mainly rock and metal. The mantle below the crust comprises iron-oxide-rich silicate. The core is made up of an iron-nickel alloy and iron sulfide. Average planet density is 3930 kilograms per cubic meter. *Pluto* The structure of Pluto is not very well understood at present. Nevertheless, spectroscopic observation from Earth in the 1970s has revealed that the planet surface is covered with methane ice. Surface temperature is -230?C (-382?F), and the frozen methane exhibits a bright coloration. However, with the exception of the polar caps, the frozen methane surface is seen to change to a dark red when eclipsed by its moon Charon. Average planet density is 2060 kilograms per cubic meter. The low average density requires that the planet must be a mix of ice and rock. *Image Credit*: Lunar and Planetary Institute |
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Mariner 1 Launch
| title |
Mariner 1 Launch |
| date |
07.22.1962 |
| description |
An Atlas-Agena 5 carrying the Mariner 1 spacecraft lifts off from the Cape Kennedy Launch Complex on a mission to Venus. The rocket went off course and was blown up by a range safety officer about 5 minutes into flight. One month later, Mariner 2's launch was successful and it became the first spacecraft to fly past Venus in December 1962. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Planet Temperatures
| title |
Planet Temperatures |
| description |
In general, the surface temperature of the planets decreases with increasing distance from the Sun. Venus is an exception because its dense atmosphere acts as a greenhouse and heats the surface to above the melting point of lead (3280C). Mercury rotates slowly and has a thin atmosphere, and consequently, the nightside temperature can be more than 5000C lower than the dayside temperature shown on the diagram. Temperatures for the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are shown at a level in the atmosphere equal in pressure to sea level on Earth. Temperatures are in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, and the planets are not shown to scale. *Image Credit*: Lunar and Planetary Institute |
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Brahms Crater
| title |
Brahms Crater |
| date |
03.30.1974 |
| description |
Thirty years ago, NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft made the first of three passes by Mercury, sending back intriguing images of the planet's battered terrain. NASA will launch the world's second probe to Mercury - named MESSENGER - this summer.This image of the crater was taken on the first flyby. Note the central peak. North is up. (Mariner 10, Atlas of Mercury, Fig. 3-2) This crater (98 km diameter) illustrates the narrow hummocky rim facies, radial ridges, and surrounding extensive field of secondary craters. The well-developed interior terraces and central peaks are typical for mercurian craters in this size range. Note that the smaller craters in the foreground (25-km diameter) also are terraced. This image(FDS 80)was taken during the spacecraft's first encounter with Mercury. The Mariner 10 mission, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, explored Venus in February 1974 on the way to three encounters with Mercury-in March and September 1974 and in March 1975. The spacecraft took more than 7,000 photos of Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon. *Image Credi*: NASA |
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Venus Mobile Explorer
| title |
Venus Mobile Explorer |
| description |
This long-lived in-situ Flagship class mission would provide aerial mobility close to the surface (approximately 10 kilometers above the surface) using metallic bellows to tolerate the extreme environment of Venus, where the temperature reaches 460 degrees Celsius, and the pressure is up to 90 bars, and the super critical carbon dioxide atmosphere is highly corrosive. |
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Sag Caldera Sachs Patera
| title |
Sag Caldera Sachs Patera |
| date |
11.20.1996 |
| description |
This image of Sachs Patera on Venus is centered at 49 degrees north, 334 degrees east. Defined as a sag-caldera, Sachs is an elliptical depression 130 meters (81 feet) in depth, spanning 40 kilometers (25 miles) in width along its longest axis. The morphology implies that a chamber of molten material drained and collapsed, forming a depression surrounded by concentric scarps spaced 2-to-5 kilometers (1.2- to-3 miles) apart. The arc-shaped set of scarps, extending out to the north from the prominent ellipse, is evidence for a separate episode of withdrawal, the small lobe-shaped extension to the southwest may represent an additional event. Solidified lava flows 10-to-25 kilometers (6-to-16 miles) long, give the caldera its flower-like appearance. The flows are a lighter tone of gray in the radar data because the lava is blockier in texture and consequently returns more radar waves. Much of the lava, which was evacuated from the chamber, probably traveled to other locations underground, while some of it may have surfaced further south. This is unlike calderas on Earth, where a rim of lava builds up in the immediate vicinity of the caldera. |
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Terrestrial Planet Sizes
| title |
Terrestrial Planet Sizes |
| description |
The terrestrial planets are the four innermost planets in the solar system, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. They are called terrestrial because they have a compact, rocky surface like the Earth's. The planets Venus, Earth, and Mars have significant atmospheres, while Mercury has almost none. This diagram shows the approximate relative sizes of the terrestrial planets. Distances are not to scale. *Image Credit*: Lunar and Planetary Institute |
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Solar System Family Portrait
| title |
Solar System Family Portrait |
| description |
These six narrow-angle color images were made from the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1, which was more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system which shows six of the planets. Mercury is too close to the sun to be seen. Mars was not detectable by the Voyager cameras due to scattered sunlight in the optics, and Pluto was not included in the mosaic because of its small size and distance from the sun. These blown-up images, left to right and top to bottom are Venus, Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. The background features in the images are artifacts resulting from the magnification. The images were taken through three color filters -- violet, blue and green -- and recombined to produce the color images. Jupiter and Saturn were resolved by the camera but Uranus and Neptune appear larger than they really are because of image smear due to spacecraft motion during the long (15 second) exposure times. Earth appears to be in a band of light because it coincidentally lies right in the center of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixels in size. Venus was 0.11 pixel in diameter. The planetary images were taken with the narrow-angle camera (1500 mm focal length). *Image Note*: This 'Portrait' contains 18 frames taken through the Narrow Angle camera using the Violet, Blue, and Green Filters. The label information describes only 3 of these frames. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Jupiter Flyby
| title |
Jupiter Flyby |
| description |
Although the main mission of the New Horizons spacecraft is to explore the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt of icy objects, it will first fly by the solar system's largest planet, Jupiter, in 2007 - a little over a year after the planned launch date. In this artist's rendering, New Horizons is just past its closest approach to the planet. Near the Sun are Earth, Venus and Mercury. The dim crescent shape at the upper right of the Sun is Callisto, the outermost of Jupiter's four largest moons. Just left of Jupiter is Europa. *Image Credit*: Southwest Research Institute (Dan Durda)/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (Ken Moscati) |
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Venus Express
| title |
Venus Express |
| description |
An artist's impression of Europe's Venus Express orbiter at Venus. *Image Credit*: European Space Agency. Illustration by Medialab. |
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Mariner 1
| title |
Mariner 1 |
| date |
07.22.1962 |
| description |
This was to be the first Mariner mission. It was intended to perform a Venus flyby. The vehicle was destroyed by the Range Safety Officer 293 seconds after launch at 09:26:16 UT when it veered off course. The booster had performed satisfactorily until an unscheduled yaw-lift (northeast) maneuver was detected by the range safety officer. Faulty application of the guidance commands made steering impossible and were directing the spacecraft towards a crash, possibly in the North Atlantic shipping lanes or in an inhabited area. The destruct command was sent 6 seconds before separation, after which the launch vehicle could not have been destroyed. The radio transponder continued to transmit signals for 64 seconds after the destruct command had been sent. The failure was apparently caused by a combination of two factors. Improper operation of the Atlas airborne beacon equipment resulted in a loss of the rate signal from the vehicle for a prolonged period. The airborne beacon used for obtaining rate data was inoperative for four periods ranging from 1.5 to 61 seconds in duration. Additionally, the Mariner 1 Post Flight Review Board determined that the omission of a hyphen in coded computer instructions in the data-editing program allowed transmission of incorrect guidance signals to the spacecraft. During the periods the airborne beacon was inoperative the omission of the hyphen in the data-editing program caused the computer to incorrectly accept the sweep frequency of the ground receiver as it sought the vehicle beacon signal and combined this data with the tracking data sent to the remaining guidance computation. This caused the computer to swing automatically into a series of unnecessary course corrections with erroneous steering commands which finally threw the spacecraft off course. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Wheatley Crater, Venus
| title |
Wheatley Crater, Venus |
| description |
Magellan radar image of Wheatley crater on Venus. This 72 km diameter crater shows a radar bright ejecta pattern and a generally flat floor with some rough raised areas and faulting. The crater is located in Asteria Regio at 16.6N,267E. (Portion of Magellan C1-MIDR 15N266;1,framelets 21 and 22) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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The Surface of Venus from th
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| title |
The Surface of Venus from the Venera 10 Lander |
| date |
10.25.1975 |
| description |
Venera 10 Lander image of the surface of Venus at about 16 N, 291 E. The Lander touched down at 5:17 UT on 25 October 1975 and returned this image during the 65 minutes of operation on the surface. The sun was near zenith during this time, the lighting was about what would be seen on Earth on an overcast summer day. The objects at the bottom of the image are parts of the spacecraft. The image shows flat slabs of rock, partly covered by fine-grained material, not unlike a volcanic area on Earth. The large slab in the foreground extends over 2 meters across. Automatic gain control and logarithmic quantization were used to handle the unknown dynamic range of illumination. The raw image was converted to optical density according to Russian calibration data, then to linear radiance for image processing. It was interpolated with windowed sinc filter to avoid post-aliasing (a "pixilated" appearance), and the modulation transfer function ("aperture") of the camera was corrected with a 1 + 0.2*frequency**2 emphasis. This was then written out as 8-bit gamma-corrected values, using the sRGB standard gamma of 2.2. The bottom image is a digitally in-painted version, using Bertalmio's isophote-flow algorithm. (Venera 10 Lander, processed surface image) (Image posted with permission, copyright 2003 Don P. Mitchell. All rights reserved.) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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The Desert Surface of Venus
| title |
The Desert Surface of Venus |
| date |
03.01.1982 |
| description |
Venera 13 Lander image of the surface of Venus at 7.5 S, 303. E, east of Phoebe Regio. Venera 13 survived on the surface for 2 hours, 7 minutes, long enough to obtain 14 images on 1 March, 1982. This color 170 degree panorama was produced using dark blue, green and red filters and has a resolution of 4 to 5 min. Part of the spacecraft is at the bottom of the image. Flat rock slabs and soil are visible. The true color is difficult to judge because the Venerian atmosphere filters out blue light. The surface composition is similar to terrestrial basalt. On the ground in foreground is a camera lens cover. (Venera 13 Lander, VG00261,262) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Volcano Southeast of Phoebe
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| title |
Volcano Southeast of Phoebe Regio,Venus with Emissivity Data |
| date |
11.11.1992 |
| description |
Magellan press release image showing radio-thermal emission (emissivity). Red represents high emissivity and blue low. The image is centered at 12.5S,261E, southeast of Phoebe Regio, Venus and is 587 km on a side. The unnamed volcano is about 2 km high and shows low emissivity at the summit, which could indicate the presence of pyrrohtite or pyrite, minerals which may not be stable at lower altitudes. (Magellan press release P-40698) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Nova in Themis Regio,Venus
| title |
Nova in Themis Regio,Venus |
| description |
Magellan image of a nova, a radial network of grabens, in Themis Regio, Venus. There have been about 50 novae identified on Venus, which consist of closely spaced graben radiating from a central area. This nova is about 250 km in diameter, concentrated to the south. (North is up.) (Magellan C1-MIDR 30S279;1,framelet 18) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Venus - Magellan
| title |
Venus - Magellan |
| description |
Magellan radar image of the Venera 10 landing site on Venus. The exact coordinates of the Venera 10 lander site are not known, but the estimate is centered at 15.42N,291.51E, near the southeastern edge of Beta Regio which is also the center of this image. The Venera lander panorama shows Venera 10 landed on a plain (the dark region) and not the brighter tessera. This image is about 600 km across and north is up. (Magellan C1-MIDR 15N283;1,framelet 32) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Many Worlds, Many Craters
| title |
Many Worlds, Many Craters |
| description |
A comparison of ~30-kilometer-diameter impact craters on several planetary bodies. All craters are shown at the same scale and have been rotated so that the light source is from the left. This rotation puts north at the bottom of the images of the lunar crater and the Ganymede crater. Names and locations of the four craters are as follows: Golubkhina (Venus), 60.30N, 286.40E, Kepler (Moon), 8.10N, 38.10W, (Mars), 20.80S, 53.60E, (Ganymede), 29.80S, 136.00W. *Image Credit*: Image of Ganymede Crater contributed by Paul Schenk (Lunar and Planetary Institute). Image of Mars crater obtained from the Mars Multi-Scale Map, Calvin Hamilton (Los Alamos National Laboratory). Images of lunar and venusian craters from Robert Herrick (Lunar and Planetary Institute). |
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Venus Cloud Patterns (Colori
…
| title |
Venus Cloud Patterns (Colorized and Filtered) |
| date |
02.14.1990 |
| description |
This picture of Venus was taken by the Galileo spacecrafts Solid State Imaging System on February 14, 1990, at a range of almost 1.7 million miles from the planet. A highpass spatial filter has been applied in order to emphasize the smaller scale cloud features, and the rendition has been colorized to a bluish hue in order to emphasize the subtle contrasts in the cloud markings and to indicate that it was taken through a violet filter. The sulfuric acid clouds indicate considerable convective activity, in the equatorial regions of the planet to the left and downwind of the subsolar point (afternoon on Venus). They are analogous to "fair weather clouds" on Earth. The filamentary dark features visible in the colorized image are here revealed to be composed of several dark nodules, like beads on a string, each about 60 miles across. The Galileo Project is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, its mission is to study Jupiter and its satellites and magnetosphere after multiple gravity assist flybys at Venus and Earth. *Image Credit*: JPL |
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Chicxulub Crater
| title |
Chicxulub Crater |
| date |
01.24.1992 |
| description |
This is a computer-generated gravity map image of the Chicxulub Crater found on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The buried impact structure has been implicated in the mass extinction of life 65 million years ago and may be much larger than scientists first suspected. New analyses of gravity measurements in the region have turned up evidence that the feature is a multiring basin with a fourth, outer ring about 300 kilometers in diameter. At this diameter, the Chixulub Basin represents one of the largest collisions in the inner solar system since the so-called "heavy bombardment" ended almost four billion years ago. (The period of heavy bombardment was caused by the impact of debris from the early formation of the solar system raining in on the newly formed planets.) The only comparable post-bombardment basin is the 280-kilometer-diameter Mead Basin on Venus. *Image Credit*: Virgil L. Sharpton, University of Alaska, Fairbanks |
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Venus - 3D Perspective View
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| title |
Venus - 3D Perspective View of Maat Mons |
| date |
04.22.1992 |
| description |
Maat Mons is displayed in this computer generated three-dimensional perspective of the surface of Venus. The viewpoint is located 634 kilometers (393 miles) north of Maat Mons at an elevation of 3 kilometers (2 miles) above the terrain. Lava flows extend for hundreds of kilometers across the fractured plains shown in the foreground, to the base of Maat Mons. The view is to the south with the volcano Maat Mons appearing at the center of the image on the horizon and rising to almost 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the surrounding terrain. Maat Mons is located at approximately 0.9 degrees north latitude, 194.5 degrees east longitude with a peak that ascends to 8 kilometers (5 miles) above the mean surface. Maat Mons is named for an Egyptian Goddess of truth and justice. Magellan synthetic aperture radar data is combined with radar altimetry to develop a three-dimensional map of the surface. The vertical scale in this perspective has been exaggerated 10 times. Rays cast in a computer intersect the surface to crate 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. *Image Credit*: JPL |
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Clementine Observes the Moon
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| title |
Clementine Observes the Moon, Solar Corona, and Venus |
| description |
In 1994, during its flight, the Clementine spacecraft returned images of the Moon. In addition to the geologic mapping cameras, the Clementine spacecraft also carried two Star Tracker cameras for navigation. These lightweight (0.3 kg) cameras kept the spacecraft on track by constantly observing the positions of stars, reminiscent of the age-old seafaring tradition of sextant/star navigation. These navigation cameras were also to take some spectacular wide angle images of the Moon. In this picture the Moon is seen illuminated solely by light reflected from the Earth--Earthshine! The bright glow on the lunar horizon is caused by light from the solar corona, the sun is just behind the lunar limb. Caught in this image is the planet Venus at the top of the frame. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Prominent Rayed Craters
| title |
Prominent Rayed Craters |
| description |
These two prominent rayed craters are located at 40 degrees N, 124 degrees W. Bright halos extend as far as 2 crater diameters beyond crater rims. Individual rays extend from halo. Bright streak extending from middle top to lower is unrelated to the two craters. Craters are 40 km in diameter. This image (FDS 275) was taken during the spacecraft's first encounter with Mercury. The Mariner 10 mission was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, explored Venus in February 1974 on the way to three encounters with Mercury-in March and September 1974 and in March 1975. The spacecraft took more than 7,000 photos of Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon. *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL/Northwestern University |
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Mariner 2 Parade Float
| title |
Mariner 2 Parade Float |
| date |
01.01.1963 |
| description |
For millions of Americans, 1963 began with the New Year's Day Tournament of Roses Parade broadcast from Pasadena, Calif., led by Grand Marshall Dr. William Pickering, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Pickering was followed by a float honoring JPL's Mariner 2 space probe. Their prominent positions in the parade reflected the success of Mariner 2, the first spacecraft to encounter another planet, Venus, just 1 month earlier in December 1962. *Image Credit*: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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All Planet Sizes
| title |
All Planet Sizes |
| description |
This illustration shows the approximate sizes of the planets relative to each other. Outward from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Jupiter's diameter is about 11 times that of the Earth's and the Sun's diameter is about 10 times Jupiter's. Pluto's diameter is slightly less than one-fifth of Earth's. The planets are not shown at the appropriate distance from the Sun. *Image Credit*: Lunar and Planetary Laboratory |
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Young Craters
| title |
Young Craters |
| description |
Young craters (the largest of which is about 100 kilometers in diameter) superposed on smooth plains. Larger young craters have central peaks, flat floors, terraced walls, radial ejecta deposits, and surrounding fields of secondary craters. Smooth plains have well-developed ridges extending northwest and northeast. This image (FDS 167) was acquired during the Mariner 10's first encounter with Mercury, is located approximately 60 degrees N, 175 degrees W. The Mariner 10 mission was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science. It explored Venus in February 1974 on the way to three encounters with Mercury-in March and September 1974 and in March 1975. The spacecraft took more than 7,000 photos of Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon. *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL/Northwestern University |
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Mercury's South Pole
| title |
Mercury's South Pole |
| date |
09.21.1974 |
| description |
Mercury's south pole was photographed by one of Mariner 10's TV cameras as the spacecraft made its second close flyby of the planet September 21. The pole is located inside the large crater (180 kilometers, 110 miles) on Mercury's limb (lower center). The crater floor is shadowed and its far rim, illuminated by the sun, appears to de disconnected from the edge of the planet. Just above and to the right of the South Pole is a double ring basin about 100 kilometers (125 miles) in diameter. A bright ray system, splashed out of a 50 kilometer (30 mile) crater is seen at upper right. The stripe across the top is an artifact introduced during computer processing. The picture (FDS 166902) was taken from a distance of 85,800 kilometers (53,200 miles) less than two hours after Mariner 10 reached its closest point to the planet. The Mariner 10 mission, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, explored Venus in February 1974 on the way to three encounters with Mercury-in March and September 1974 and in March 1975. The spacecraft took more than 7,000 photos of Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon. *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL/Northwestern University |
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Mariner 2
| title |
Mariner 2 |
| description |
Mariner 2 was the world's first successful interplanetary spacecraft. Launched August 27, 1962, on an Atlas-Agena rocket, Mariner 2 passed within about 34,000 kilometers (21,000 miles) of Venus, sending back valuable new information about interplanetary space and the Venusian atmosphere. Mariner 2 recorded the temperature at Venus for the first time, revealing the planet's very hot atmosphere of about 500 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit). The spacecraft's solar wind experiment measured for the first time the density, velocity, composition and variation over time of the solar wind. *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL |
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Mercury's Caloris Basin
| title |
Mercury's Caloris Basin |
| date |
03.28.1974 |
| description |
Mercury: The desert closest to the sun. Computer Photomosaic of the Caloris Basin The largest basin on Mercury (1300 km or 800 miles across) was named Caloris (Greek for "hot") because it is one of the two areas on the planet that face the Sun at perihelion. The Image Processing Lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory produced this photomosaic using computer software and techniques developed for use in processing planetary data. The Mariner 10 spacecraft imaged the region during its initial flyby of the planet. The Mariner 10 spacecraft was launched in 1974. The spacecraft took images of Venus in February 1974 on the way to three encounters with Mercury in March and September 1974 and March 1975. The spacecraft took more than 7,000 images of Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon during its mission. The Mariner 10 Mission was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington, D.C. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Venera Test
| title |
Venera Test |
| date |
06.08.1975 |
| description |
A rare picture of Russian engineers testing a Venera Venus lander. This type of lander was used in the Venera 9 and 10 missions to the surface of Venus. *Image Credit*: NASA National Space Science Data Center |
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Double Transit
| title |
Double Transit |
| date |
06.08.2004 |
| description |
On June 8th, in a tiny village in Slovakia, Tomas Maruska took a picture that is beyond rare. It shows Venus and the International Space Station (ISS) transiting the Sun at the same time. The double transit was visible only inside a narrow corridor a few hundred meters wide. And it was brief. The space station crosses in the Sun in a split second. Maruska knew when and where to look thanks to the predictions of Thomas Fly, an expert forecaster of ISS transits. The image was taken in the village of Stupava, north of Bratislava, Slovakia. *Image Copyright*: Tomas Maruska 2004 |
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Venus Transit
| title |
Venus Transit |
| date |
06.08.2004 |
| description |
NASA's TRACE satellite captured this image of Venus crossing the face of the Sun as seen from Earth orbit. The last event occurred in 1882. The next Venus transit will be visible in 2012. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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MESSENGER Launch
| title |
MESSENGER Launch |
| date |
08.03.2004 |
| description |
The tip of the Boeing Delta II rocket with its MESSENGER spacecraft on top breaks through the billows of smoke below as it lifts off on time at 2:15:56 a.m. EDT on Aug. 3, 2004 from Launch Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) is on a seven-year journey to the planet Mercury. The spacecraft will fly by Earth, Venus and Mercury several times to burn off energy before making its final approach to the inner planet on March 18, 2011. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Venera 10
| title |
Venera 10 |
| date |
06.14.1975 |
| description |
Venera 10, like its sister craft Venera 9, fully accomplished its mission to soft-land on Venus and return data from the surface. The spacecraft followed an identical mission to that of its twin, arriving only a few days later after two trajectory corrections on 21 June and 18 October 1975. The 660-kilogram lander separated from its parent on 23 October and entered the atmosphere two days later at 01:02 UT. During reentry, the lander survived gravity acceleration as high as 168 g and temperatures as high 12,000°C. It performed its complex landing procedures without fault and landed without incident at 02:17 UT approximately 2,200 kilometers from the Venera 9 landing site. Landing coordinates were 16° north latitude and 291° longitude. Venera 10 transmitted for a record 65 minutes from the surface, although it was designed to last only 30 minutes. A photo of the Venera 10 landing site showed a smoother surface than that of its twin. Like Venera 9, the Venera 10 lander was supposed to take a 360° panorama but covered only 180° of the surroundings because of a stuck lens cover. Meanwhile, the Venera 10 orbiter entered a 1,400 x 114,000-kilometer orbit around Venus inclined at 29°30'. Soviet officials later revealed that the termination of data reception from both Veneras 9 and 10 was not caused by the adverse surface conditions but by the flying out of view of the orbiter relays for both spacecraft. Gamma-ray spectrometer and radiation densitometer data indicated that the surface layer was akin to basalt rather than granite as hinted by the information from Venera 8. |
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Venera 3
| title |
Venera 3 |
| date |
11.06.1965 |
| description |
This was the second of three 3MV spacecraft the Soviets attempted to launch toward Venus in late 1965. Venera 3 successfully left Earth orbit and released a small 0.9- meter-diameter, 337-kilogram (some sources say 310-kilogram) landing capsule to explore the Venusian atmosphere and transmit data on pressure, temperature, and composition of the Venusian atmosphere back to Earth during the descent by parachute. During the outbound trajectory, ground controllers successfully performed a midcourse correction on 26 December 1965 and completed 93 communications sessions. However, contact was lost on 16 February 1966, shortly before the Venusian encounter, although the spacecraft automatically released its sterilized lander probe, which landed inertly on the Venusian surface at 06:56 UT on 1 March 1966. It was the first time a humanmade object had made physical contact with another planetary body besides the Moon. Later investigation confirmed that Venera 3 suffered many of the same failures as Venera 2, such as overheating of internal components and the solar panels. |
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Venusian Craters
| title |
Venusian Craters |
| description |
These views show several examples of impact craters over a large range on Venus. Craters are listed in order of increasing diameter: * 4 km (6.40N, 272.20E): Note the irregular shape. The dense venusian atmosphere prevents small meteoroids from making it to the surface (there are no craters less than ~2 kilometers in diameter) and causes meteoroids that form the smallest craters to fragment and separate, resulting in a noncircular crater. * 10 km (0.00N, 142.60E): "Multiple-floored" appearance is due to fragmentation of the incoming meteoroid, causing a crater that looks like buckshot hit the surface. * 14 km (60.00N, 273.10E, Margit) * 24 km (1.10N, 284.30E, Sikibu): In comparing Sikibu to Margit, note that the larger crater has a central peak and a flat floor. Also, the ejecta blanket, the material thrown out of the crater, has a petal-like appearance, perhaps because the blanket was emplaced by a debris flow process. * 38 km (17.40N, 170.40E, Caccini) * 53 km (66.30N, 125.70E, Zhilova) *Image Credit*: Robert Herrick (Lunar and Planetary Institute) |
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Mariner Diagram
| title |
Mariner Diagram |
| date |
01.01.1965 |
| description |
A diagram of the Mariner series of spacecraft and launch vehicle. Mariner spacecraft explored Mercury, Venus and Mars. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Solar System Montage
| Title |
Solar System Montage |
| Full Description |
This is a montage of planetary images taken by spacecraft managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Included are (from top to bottom) images of Mercury, Venus, Earth (and Moon), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The spacecraft responsible for these images are as follows: the Mercury image was taken by Mariner 10, the Venus image by Magellan, the Earth image by Galileo, the Mars image by Viking, and the Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune images by Voyager. Pluto is not shown as no spacecraft has yet visited it. The inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars) are roughly to scale to each other, the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are roughly to scale to each other. Actual diameters are given below: Sun 1,390,000 km Mercury 4,879 km Venus 12,104 km Earth 12,756 km Moon 3,475 km Mars 6,794 km Jupiter 142.984 km Saturn 120,536 km Uranus 51,118 km Neptune 49,528 km Pluto 2,390 km |
| Date |
04/09/1999 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
|
Hypervelocity Shock Tube
| Title |
Hypervelocity Shock Tube |
| Full Description |
The forty-foot Hypervelocity Shock Tube, seen in this 1963 photo, was used to simulate the incredible heat experienced by a spacecraft as it decelerated into the atmosphere of a planet such as Venus or Mars. The nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and argon in the tube reached a temperature of 45,000? Fahrenheit (achieved by a discharge of electrical energy) as a shock wave passed by small heat-sensitive gauges and a high- speed camera recorded the effect. This facility was capable of simulating entry velocities of over 40 times the speed of sound (about 30,000 miles an hour). The device helped determine the design and materials of spacecraft that probed the atmospheres and surfaces of planets. By filling the tube with various gases, that were thought to exist in the atmospheres of the planets, it was possible to determine what heat the high velocity of entry generated. |
| Date |
1963 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
|
Kennedy Receives Mariner 2 M
…
| Title |
Kennedy Receives Mariner 2 Model |
| Full Description |
Dr. William H. Pickering, (center) JPL Director, presenting Mariner spacecraft model to President John F. Kennedy, (right). NASA Administrator James Webb is standing directly behind the Mariner model. The Mariner 2 probe flew by Venus in 1962 after the failure of Mariner 1, sending back data on its atmosphere, mass, and weather patterns. It stopped transmitting in 1963 after delivering a wealth of scientific information. |
| Date |
01/01/1961 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
|
Launch of Cassini Orbiter &
…
| Title |
Launch of Cassini Orbiter & Huygens Probe |
| Full Description |
A seven-year journey to the ringed planet Saturn begins with the liftoff of a Titan IVB/Centaur carrying the Cassini orbiter and its attached Huygens probe. Launch occurred at 4:43 a.m. EDT, October 15, 1997 from Launch Complex 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Station. After a 2.2-billion mile journey that will include two swing-bys of Venus and one of Earth to gain additional velocity, the two-storey tall spacecraft will arrive at Saturn in July 2004. The orbiter will circle the planet for four years, its complement of 12 scientific instruments gathering data about Saturn's atmosphere, rings and magnetosphere and conducting closeup observations of the Saturnian moons. Huygens, with a separate suite of six science instruments, will separate from Cassini to fly on a ballistic trajectory toward Titan, the only celestial body besides Earth to have an atmosphere rich in nitrogen. Scientists are eager to study further this chemical similarity in hopes of learning more about the origins of our own planet Earth. Huygens will provide the first direct sampling of Titan's atmospheric chemistry and the first detailed photographs of its surface. The Cassini mission is an international effort involving NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI). The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the U.S. contribution to the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The major U.S. contractor is Lockheed Martin, which provided the launch vehicle and upper stage, spacecraft propulsion module and radioisotope thermoelectric generators that will provide power for the spacecraft. The Titan IV/Centaur is a U.S. Air Force launch vehicle, and launch operations were managed by the 45th Space Wing. |
| Date |
10/15/1997 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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