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The first successful flyby Venus probe was the American Mariner 2 spacecraft, which flew past Venus in 1962, coming within 35,000 km. A modified Ranger Moon probe, it established that Venus has practically no intrinsic magnetic field and measured the temperature of the planet's atmosphere to be approximately 500 °C (773 K ; 932 °F ).
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.
Outline of tessera terrain imposed on the 'GIS Map of Venus' Maxwell Montes's tessera (t) terrain seen in appearing as white in SAR image. Tesserae are regions of heavily deformed terrain, mostly located on highland areas (greater than 2 km in elevation) on Venus. This tectonic feature -or uni— is thought to be the oldest material on Venusian ...
Venus has a diameter of 12,103.6 km (7,520.8 mi)—only 638.4 km (396.7 mi) less than Earth's—and its mass is 81.5% of Earth's, making it the third-smallest planet in the Solar System. Conditions on the Venusian surface differ radically from those on Earth because its dense atmosphere is 96.5% carbon dioxide, with most of the remaining 3.5% ...
Representation of Venus (yellow) and Earth (blue) circling around the Sun. Venus and its rotation in respect to its revolution. Venus has an orbit with a semi-major axis of 0.723 au (108,200,000 km; 67,200,000 mi), and an eccentricity of 0.007.
The SAR system was crucial in the mapping efforts of the mission and featured an 8-month operational tour to capture Venus's surface at a resolution of 1 to 2 kilometers (0.6 to 1.2 miles). [8] When the system was switched to radio altimeter mode the antenna operated at an 8-centimeter wavelength band to send and receive signals off of the ...
Its mission objectives were to map the surface of Venus by using synthetic-aperture radar and to measure the planetary gravitational field. [ 2 ] The Magellan probe was the first interplanetary mission to be launched from the Space Shuttle , the first one to use the Inertial Upper Stage booster, and the first spacecraft to test aerobraking as a ...
Terrestrial planets have a compact, rocky surfaces, and Venus, Earth, and Mars each also has an atmosphere. Their size, radius, and density are all similar. Terrestrial planets have numerous similarities to dwarf planets (objects like Pluto), which also have a solid surface, but are primarily composed of icy materials.