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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.
Because Venus is completely covered in clouds, human knowledge of surface conditions was largely speculative until the space probe era. Until the mid-20th century, the surface environment of Venus was believed to be similar to Earth, hence it was widely believed that Venus could harbor life.
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.
Although the surface conditions on Venus are no longer hospitable to any terrestrial-like life that might have formed before this event, there is speculation that life may exist in the upper cloud layers of Venus, 50 km (30 mi) above the surface, where atmospheric conditions are the most Earth-like in the Solar System, [106] with temperatures ...
The terraforming of Venus or the terraformation of Venus is the hypothetical process of engineering the global environment of the planet Venus in order to make it suitable for human habitation. [1] [2] [3] Adjustments to the existing environment of Venus to support human life would require at least three major changes to the planet's atmosphere ...
A NASA spacecraft has captured never-before-seen images of Venus, providing stunning views of the hellishly hot surface of the second rock from the sun. Dark side of Venus revealed in new NASA ...
Its surface displays extensive evidence of volcanic activity with stagnant lid tectonics. [101] Venus has no natural satellites. [97] Earth (0.98–1.02 AU) [D 6] is the only place in the universe where life and surface liquid water are known to exist. [102] Earth's atmosphere contains 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, which is the result of the ...
In “The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life,” readers won't walk away with a clear-cut answer to that question.