Venus Surface Features


Crater Aurelia. Since this is a radar image, the rough parts of the crater appear very bright (the rim and the central peak in this case). This crater is about 32 km wide measuring from the rims.


Arachnoids are shown here. These features have a rather circular or at least oval shape and are made up of concentric rings along with an almost radiant cracking - sort of like the legs of a spider stretching outwards.


There is a lot going on in this image, including faults and lava flows. Remember, the different shades are due to different roughnesses of the surface, with the roughest part looking lighter. This would also indicate the freshest lava flows, since they haven't been smoothed down by any significant erosion.


These are called pancakes, for obvious reasons and are also lava flow features. In this case, a lava source breaks through the surface and spreads out evenly over the surface, forming a nice circular feature. Don't put any syrup on these though, they'll give you indigestion.


The tick is shown here, another unusual volcanic feature. These just might be unusually shaped volcanos, very different to any volcanic form on the Earth. At least they won't make you sick.


Two corona are shown here. These are another volcanic feature very similar to the the arachnoids, but quite large. These appear to be areas that were expanded at one time and then later collapsed inward.


A field of small volcanoes is seen here. There are quite a few regions of Venus that are just covered with small basaltic volcanoes, similar to those seen in Hawaii. Yet there are many more of these!