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Named after a supposedly Slovene word for Venus according to the official astronomical naming body, although neither Slovene dictionaries nor Slovene corpora include this word.(Name changed from Poranica Vallis.) Saga Vallis: 76.1N: 340.6E: 450.0: 1994: Saga, Norse goddess in the form of a waterfall. Samundra Vallis: 24.1S: 347.1E: 110.0: 1994
The English name of Venus was originally the ancient Roman name for it. Romans named Venus after their goddess of love, who in turn was based on the ancient Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, [275] who was herself based on the similar Sumerian religion goddess Inanna (which is Ishtar in Akkadian religion), all of whom were associated with the planet.
The surface of Venus is comparatively flat. When 93% of the topography was mapped by Pioneer Venus Orbiter, scientists found that the total distance from the lowest point to the highest point on the entire surface was about 13 kilometres (8.1 mi), about the same as the vertical distance between the Earth's ocean floor and the higher summits of the Himalayas.
The surface of Venus is dominated by geologic features that include volcanoes, large impact craters, and aeolian erosion and sedimentation landforms. Venus has a topography reflecting its single, strong crustal plate, with a unimodal elevation distribution (over 90% of the surface lies within an elevation of -1.0 and 2.5 km) [1] that preserves geologic structures for long periods of time.
Lakshmi Planum is a plateau feature approximately 2 million km 2 ringed by rugged mountains, [1] the surface of Venus on the Western Ishtar Terra. It is named after Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth.
Cythera is a small Greek island, southeast of the Peloponnesus, and a legendary birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). The word Cytherean was first applied to the goddess and later, due to word taboo, to the planet Venus that had been named after the goddess.
These features can be named after places associated with Io mythology, derived from nearby named features, or places from Dante's Inferno: Paterae Paterae on Io are named after fire, sun, thunder or volcano gods, heroes or goddesses or mythical blacksmiths. Valles Names of valleys are derived from nearby named features.
Maxwell Montes is named for James Clerk Maxwell whose work in mathematical physics predicted the existence of radio waves, which made radar, and thus the surface observations of Venus, possible. [9] Maxwell Montes, Alpha Regio, and Beta Regio are the three exceptions to the rule that the surface features of Venus are to be named for females.