Venus
Summary
The student learns about craters and volcanoes on Venus.
Background and Theory
Venus, our closest planetary neighbor, shares a common ancestry with Earth:
Both planets formed about the same time and from the same gaseous nebula.
Venus and Earth are both cloud covered worlds with about the same mass, but
this where the similarity ends. The
Magellan mission to Venus has
shown us that Venus has many features that are unique in our solar system.
Even features that are seen almost everyplace in the solar system, such as
impact craters, look different on Venus.
Procedure
- Look at these images of impact craters on Venus:
Compare these Venusian craters to these Lunar craters:
Notice how large the ejecta blanket is compared to the size of the crater.
How is this different on Venus as compared to the Moon. Why do you think
this is?
- Venus also has a huge number of unique volcanic features. Compare these examples of volcanoes.
Which of these look different? What is a possible reason why these
volcanoes look different?
- Finally, the impact craters on Venus are named after famous women. Many
of the women in this class share a name with a crater on Venus. Click
here to see if you, or someone you know, shares a name with a crater on
Venus. (click on the [submit] button on that page) - (This link can be really
slow.........)
