SUBJECT: VENUS PROBE FINDS EARTHLIKE FEATURES FILE: UFO2179
=START= XMT: 18:11 Tue Aug 21 EXP: 18:00 Wed Aug 22
FIRST PICTURES FROM VENUS REVEAL EARTH-LIKE FEATURES
PASADENA, CA (AUG. 21) REUTER -
The first pictures from Venus by the space probe Magellan unveiled on Tuesday
show features similar to Hawaiian volcanoes, the Rhine Valley, the rift
valleys of East Africa and the earthquake faults of California.
Scientists said Magellan's radar-produced pictures, displayed at the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion laboratory, showed
volcanoes, mountains and huge valleys caused by the shifting of the planet's
surface.
They were taken by Magellan last week before the craft inexplicably went off
the air for 12 hours, giving scientists and engineers a scare.
Magellan engineer Steve Saunders said scientists were surprised they got so
much interesting and useful data out of a test run ''which was really designed
to give us a little sample here and there.''
''It looks pretty good. But right now I think it's just sort of a crack in
the door. I'm looking through a little slit down at Venus, and we're seeing
some things that we've never seen before.
''We're only looking through a little crack in the door here and we're going
to open that door a lot wider,'' he added in a reference to the full radar
mapping of the the planet, which NASA hopes can begin the first week of
September.
Venus is known as Earth's ''sister planet'' because of its similar size and
position in the galaxy, and Magellan found other similarities, Saunders said.
The space probe produced two radar images of the surface during the test, each
10s of thousands of km square.
Using three photographs, or ''mosaics'' produced by scientists from the data,
Saunders pointed out ridges and valleys. ''We see evidence of volcanic
materials, probably volcanic floes occupying the floors of these valleys'' he
said.
Pictures showed Venus is intensely fractured and faulted. Pointing to lines
zig-sagging across the surface, he said they were probably ''tinsel
fractures'' caused by a pulling apart of the crust.
''It's very typical of a region of extension on the Earth, where we find it in
the rift valleys in East Africa ... or if you could see the sub-surface in
the Salt Trough (an earthquake fault) in California.''
The photographs all showed an area flanking the ''Beta Regio Volcanic
Highlands.'' Indicating a ''pit crater'' which he said was nine-tenths of a
mile (1.5 km) Saunders said he believed it to be volcanic in origin and not
caused by a meteor impact.
''This is very much like the kind of pit depressions that you find on the
slopes of Mauna Lea (a Hawaiian volcano), and about the same scale.''
A huge Venusian valley, called the Devana Chasm, had similar fault patterns to
those which scientists have mapped in the Rhine Graven region of Germany,
Saunder said.
Scientists believe Venus can tell them a lot about the Earth. It is believed
the planet went through a global warming similar to that which is thought to
be starting on Earth.
The temperature of the planet is 900 degrees Fahrenheit (468 centigrade).
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