surfaces and features of venus and fictions also

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Venus has two major continent-like highlands on its surface, rising over vast plains. The northern highland is named Ishtar Terra and has Venus's highest mountains, named the Maxwell Montes (roughly 2 km taller than Mount Everest) after James Clerk Maxwell, which surround the plateau Lakshmi Planum . Ishtar Terra is about the size of Australia. In the southern hemisphere is the larger Aphrodite Terra, about the size of South America. Between these highlands are a number of broad depressions, including Atalanta Planitia, Guinevere Planitia, and Lavinia Planitia. With the exception of Maxwell Montes, all surface features on Venus are named after real or mythological females. Venus' thick atmosphere causes meteors to decelerate as they fall toward the surface, and even large meteors will strike the surface at too low a speed to form an impact crater if they have less than a certain threshold kinetic energy. Smaller objects also break up in the dense atmosphere before hitting the ground, and thus no impact crater smaller than about 3 km (2 mi) in diameter can form. Nearly 90% of Venus's surface appears to consist of recently (in the geological sense) solidified basaltic lava, with very few meteorite craters. The oldest features present on Venus seem to be only around 800 million years old, with most of the terrain being considerably younger (though still not less than several hundred million years for the most part). This suggests that Venus underwent a major resurfacing event in the not too distant geological past. The interior of Venus is probably similar to that of Earth: an iron core about 3000 km in radius, with a molten rocky mantle making up the majority of the planet. Recent results from the Magellan gravity data indicate that Venus's crust is stronger and thicker than had previously been assumed. It is theorized that Venus does not have mobile plate tectonics as Earth does, but instead undergoes massive volcanic upwellings at regular intervals that inundate its surface with fresh lava. Other recent findings suggest that Venus is still volcanically active in isolated geological hotspots. Venus's intrinsic magnetic field has been found very weak compared to other planets in the solar system. This may be due to its slow rotation being insufficient to drive an internal dynamo of liquid iron. As a result, solar wind strikes Venus's upper atmosphere without mediation. It is thought that Venus originally had as much water as Earth, but that water vapor in the upper atmosphere was split into hydrogen and oxygen due to solar wind. Therefore, the hydrogen escaped into space because of its low molecular mass; the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium (a heavier isotope of hydrogen which doesn't escape as quickly) in Venus's atmosphere seems to support this theory. Molecular oxygen is thought to have combined with atoms in the crust (large amounts of oxygen, however, remain in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide). Because of dryness, Venus's rocks are much harder than Earth's, which leads to steeper mountains, cliffs and other features. Venus has many active volcanoes similar to those on Earth, so there is a lot of lava present on the surface. There are also other bodies that spout lava, known as arachnoids, for their spiderweb-like look. They are quite different from the volcanoes on earth, and are formed differently too. There are about 30 arachnoids on Venus. Venus' moon Venus was once thought to possess a moon, named Neith after the chief goddess of Sais, Egypt (whose veil no mortal raised), first observed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1672. German astronomers called the moon Kleinchen (literally "tiny"), and sporadic sightings by astronomers continued until 1892. These sightings have since been discredited, and are thought to have been either spurious internal reflections, mostly faint stars that happened to be in the right place at the right time, or maybe even asteroids passing by the planet. Venus is now known to be moonless. [edit ] Observations and explorations of Venus Main article: Observations and explorations of Venus Venus sky movement patterns have been observed several times within the past 4000 years by a number of people, including the Greeks. For elongations and other aspects, see Aspects of Venus. Life on Venus Space probes in the 1960's made it reasonably clear that the surface of Venus is far too hot to support life as we know it. However, the cloud cover supports fairly life-friendly conditions at higher altitudes. Some speculate that spores from Earth could hitch a ride on small passing asteroids and survive a trip to Venus's atmosphere. Recent spectrographic observations have found carbonyl sulfide in the atmosphere of Venus, a chemical that is very difficult to make via natural processes and is usually associated with life. Fiction Main article: Venus in fiction Until it was penetrated by probes, Venus's opaque cloud layer gave science fiction writers free rein in imagining the planet's surface, and they frequently imagined it to be Earthlike. There are some religious sects who believe that Hell may be located on Venus. Its extremely high surface temperature and impenetrable cloud cover cause people to believe that the fires of Hell burn on the surface, obscured from our earthly view. Conversely, other sects consider Venus to be some form of paradise or an advanced secret base for angels/aliens to operate from. Ray Bradbury's short story collection, The Illustrated Man , contains a piece titled The Long Rain. In the story, four men search for a 'sun dome' on the surface of Venus, as it never stops raining. In Olaf Stapledon's epic Last and First Men (1930), Venus is an oceanic idyll where humans evolve the power of flight. In the mythology of Middle-earth (1937), by J. R. R. Tolkien , Venus is the Star of Eärendil. The star was created when Eärendil the Mariner was set in the sky on his ship, with a Silmaril bound to his brow. In fact, Tolkien chose the name directly from the ancient Old English word for the planet Venus. In H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos (1928–), there are mentions of the 'Lords of Venus', and conflicting indications that the Serpent People originated there. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a series of five books on Venus (the Venus series), featuring hero Carson Napier, who discovers that Venus (or Amtor, as it is known by the Venusians) is a world of sky-high trees, warring kingdoms and princesses in need of rescue. [4] The H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling short story 'In the Walls of Eryx' (1939), takes place on Venus, but is not considered part of the Cthulhu Mythos. In Robert A. Heinlein's Future History, Venus is portrayed as a world covered entirely in hot, steamy swamps, which are used to explain the constant, unyielding cloud cover. Humans can live on Venus, but they find it very uncomfortable, and the few who settle there mainly are there for growing and harvesting local crops for export. The native Venusians are a primitive, yet peaceful people who tolerate humanity's presence and colonization. The second book of the Space Trilogy (1938–1945) by C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (1943) takes place on Venus (called by the natives Perelandra), the site of a second garden of Eden. In the military science fiction classic Clash by Night (1943) by Henry Kuttner (writing as Lawrence O'Donnell) and C. L. Moore, underwater city-states hire mercenary companies and their battleships to fight their wars on the surface of venus. Venus was the home planet of the Mekon, arch-enemy of the 1950s comic book hero Dan Dare. Many science-fiction movies and serials of the '50s and '60s, such as Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Space Ship Sappy and Space Patrol, have used Venus' namesake goddess and her domain to contrive planetary populations of nubile women welcoming (or attacking) all-male astronaut crews. In some of the early Perry Rhodan stories (1961-1962), Venus is a jungle world inhabited by dinosaurs and other monstrous creatures, and is the site of a huge, ancient alien fortress. In the John W. Campbell novel The Black Star Passes, Venus is the home of an advanced civilization that creates enormous aircraft, among other things. In the Noon Universe created by the Soviet science fiction writers Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, Venus is depicted as an extremely harsh planet covered by strange flora and fauna but also very rich in minerals and heavy metals. The novel The Land of Crimson Clouds (Strana Bagrovykh Tuch in the original) describes the first successful manned mission to Venus, although a full-scaled colonization of the planet was not initiated until much later (in 2119; see Noon: 22nd Century). Venus is the location of several Starfleet Academy training facilities and terraforming stations in the fictional Star Trek universe (1966–). In Jacqueline Susann's Yargo (1979), Venus is inhabited by bees that are as big as horses. A. E. Van Vogt's The World of Null-A and The Players of Null-A have Venus terraformed into a paradise in the far future, where immigration from Earth is strictly controlled. The trees are all giants, with massive leaves to hold back the torrential rains. Venus is briefly mentioned in Arthur C. Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997). A presumably terraformed Venus was the setting of one episode of the anime Cowboy Bebop (1998). In the show, Venus was revealed to be an arid but habitable world. Much of the population lived in floating cities in the sky. In the cartoon Exosquad, terraformed Venus was portrayed as one of the three habitable planets in the solar system (the others being Earth and Mars). In the Japanese anime series, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (1992), Sailor Venus is a soldier representing the planet of the same name. In mythology, Venus is the Roman goddess of love (Aphrodite in Greek), therefore, Sailor Venus's attacks and weapons (e.g. Venus Love Me Chain and Venus