Venus with known topography scaled one in sixty million

2 reviews

tato_713

@tato

The second planet in distance to the Sun.

375

1442

updated May 15, 2021

Description

PDF

Originally published here: Venus with known topography scaled one in sixty million by tato_713 - Thingiverse

This model was made using MATLAB R2016a with the data from the Magellan mission available in the USGS site. The original map has as top the pole that is facing the north of the Solar System. Since the rotation of Venus is retrograde, the right hand rule convention indicate that this pole is actually the south pole, so I did the models "upside down" as viewed from the Earth north pole. The relief is exaggerated in order to make it more visible.
The file's names explained: name_1_x_10_y.stl is 1 : x* 10^y. So _1_6_10_7 is 1:600000000 or one in 60 million.

Venus

Venus is the second planet in the Solar System in distance to the Sun, the second biggest rocky planet after the Earth, the brighter object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon, and the terrestrial body with the denser atmosphere. This is composed of CO2 (96.5%), N (3.5%), and traces, with a surface pressure 92 times of that of Earth atmosphere. The surface temperature is 735 K, because of the strong greenhouse effect. Venus is relatively depleted of craters, since its dense atmosphere that act like a shield, and erode the terrain. However the venusian surface is highly shaped by the volcanic activity. There are three large elevated areas named terras similar, but not analogous, to Earth continents. These are the Ishtar Terra, which is nearly the size of Australia and is around the south pole; Aphrodite Terra, which is located at the equator and has the size of Africa; and Lada Terra, with lower topography than the other two, and located nearly the north pole of Venus (pointing to the south of the Solar System).