Venus’ surface
- Hot surface may explain lack of plate tectonics
- plates aren’t solid/rigid
H2SO4 cloud cover
- H2SO4 baked out of rocks
- Surface hidden from view
- use radio (radar) to penetrate
- time delay can be converted into elevation
- if d is the distance away,
- if Rspacecraft is the spacecraft height,
- the surface height is Rsurface = Rspacecraft - d
- surface roughness measured by strength of reflected signal
- Crude maps from earth
- Arecibo, worlds largest telescope Fig. 12.12
- Best maps from Russian and American space probes
- Magellan, early 90’s, mapped whole surface (see video)