Word: venusized
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SPACE Magellan unveils the volcanic fury of Venus...
...NASA's Magellan spacecraft seems to have found one more horror in the nasty landscape: active volcanoes. Last week the space agency released the first detailed map of Venus and the most spectacular images ever made of its surface. The pictures offer the best evidence to date that a planet once presumed dead is actually a lively cauldron of geological change...
...most stunning image is of Venus' second tallest mountain, Maat Mons, which rises 8 km (5 miles). Most of the planet's many peaks, including 9.5-km- (6-mile-) high Maxwell Montes, look bright in the radar pictures Magellan takes from its orbit above the perpetual cloud cover. That means they are strong reflectors of radar waves. But Maat Mons is dark; like the Stealth bomber, it absorbs much of the radar falling...
Such resurfacing has undoubtedly taken place in Venus' lowlands: earlier images of the planet showed vast areas that are remarkably free of craters. That would be easy to explain on a planet like Earth, where cratering from meteor strikes is erased by steady erosion. But while there is some evidence of wind erosion on Venus, the best explanation for the lack of cratering is periodic lava flows. Magellan has found direct evidence of such flows, including domelike upwellings and hardened streams of rock trailing down the sides of Venusian peaks. There are also signs of other geologic activity, including dramatic...
...main antenna for sending out images is frozen in the wrong position. Not until 1992, when Galileo swings back by Earth, can smaller antennas on the craft successfully transmit the missing pictures. The frustrating delay makes scientists all the more grateful for Magellan's reliable -- and revealing -- signals from Venus...