NASA’s Magellan mission to Venus was one of the most successful deep space missions. Launched on May 4, 1989, it was the first spacecraft to image the entire surface of Venus.
NASA recently shared an image from NASA’s Magellan mission on its blog. The image is called ‘Crater Farm’: the curious layering of volcanic activity and impact craters.
NASA noted, “Three impact craters are displayed in this three-dimensional perspective view of the surface of Venus. The center of the image is located at approximately 27 degrees south latitude, 339 degrees east longitude in the northwestern portion of the Lavinia Planitia region of Venus.”
David Grinspoon, Curator of Astrobiology, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, said, “I remember when I first laid my eyes on a press release image from early on in the Magellan mission of an area informally called the ‘Crater Farm.’ I could see in that one image that there was something really strange about Venus. It still seems strange, even though this image is from the early 90s. The Crater Farm image shows these very pristine looking craters, super-imposed on a volcanic background that are not lapping up at all onto the edge of the craters.”
