Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2003 May 14 
Posted on 05/14/2003 3:54:24 AM PDT by petuniasevan
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2003 May 14
Explanation: If you could look down on the North Pole of Venus what would you see? The Magellan probe that orbited Venus from 1990 to 1994 was able to peer through the thick Venusian clouds and build up the above image by emitting and re-detecting cloud-penetrating radar. Visible as the bright patch below central North is Venus' highest mountain Maxwell Montes. Other notable features include numerous mountains, coronas, impact craters, tessera, ridges, and lava flows. Although the size and mass of Venus are similar to the Earth, its thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere has trapped heat so efficiently that surface temperature usually exceeds 700 kelvins, hot enough to melt lead.
I will be on vacation from June 2nd through June 9th.
If anyone would like to volunteer to post APOD during that time, please FReepmail me.
Otherwise the APOD will not be posted as I will be visiting relatives in California.
Venus - the kind of place I'd like to send all the liberals. Call it a preview of coming attractions.
| Venus Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Mass (kg) | 4.869e+24 |
| Mass (Earth = 1) | .81476 |
| Equatorial radius (km) | 6,051.8 |
| Equatorial radius (Earth = 1) | .94886 |
| Mean density (gm/cm^3) | 5.25 |
| Mean distance from the Sun (km) | 108,200,000 |
| Mean distance from the Sun (Earth = 1) | 0.7233 |
| Rotational period (days) | -243.0187 |
| Orbital period (days) | 224.701 |
| Mean orbital velocity (km/sec) | 35.02 |
| Orbital eccentricity | 0.0068 |
| Tilt of axis (degrees) | 177.36 |
| Orbital inclination (degrees) | 3.394 |
| Equatorial surface gravity (m/sec^2) | 8.87 |
| Equatorial escape velocity (km/sec) | 10.36 |
| Visual geometric albedo | 0.65 |
| Magnitude (Vo) | -4.4 |
| Mean surface temperature | 482°C |
| Atmospheric pressure (bars) | 92 |
| Atmospheric composition Carbon dioxide Nitrogen
carbon monoxide, argon, helium, neon, hydrogen chloride, and hydrogen fluoride. |
96% 3+% |
Venus Introduction contains lots of images and information on Venus.
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