Future Venus Missions |
Future Venus Missions |
Jul 1 2005, 01:30 AM
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10256 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Oh well, might as well start that new topic since it's already well advanced in the Juno area...
My perspective on landers is as follows. All the landers we've had so far were dropped blind onto an essentially unknown surface. Any future landers can be targeted for specific terrains. It really is not true that we have had representative landings. Even a descent image or two, a panoramic photo plus a bit of surface composition, from a simple Venera-class lander just updated a bit, would be useful if we could put several down at well chosen targets. My choices would be: Examples of the main plains units (smooth, fractured, ridged) tesserae high elevation radar-bright tesserae large fresh lava flow unit ('fluctus') crater dark parabola crater ejecta outflow unit dunes area. And I have always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that it would be relatively easy to put these down, so they ought to be fairly inexpensive as planetary landers go. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PDF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Dec 16 2005, 11:27 PM
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Guests |
Well, it's a fact that E.E. Barnard -- one of the sharpest-eyed of all astronomers (which is how he discovered Amalthea) -- is also the only naked-eye astronomer to swear that he saw Mars covered with craters.
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Dec 17 2005, 12:47 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 809 Joined: 11-March 04 Member No.: 56 |
QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Dec 16 2005, 11:27 PM) Well, it's a fact that E.E. Barnard -- one of the sharpest-eyed of all astronomers (which is how he discovered Amalthea) -- is also the only naked-eye astronomer to swear that he saw Mars covered with craters. I've read that claim attributed to John Mellish. It's a little hard to believe, unless you count the Hellas and Argyre basins as "craters", in which case they've been observed for a long time. Schiaparelli Crater's outline was observed, by Schiaparelli himself, but only because it cuts into the dark outline of Terra Meridiani (and of course he didn't identify it as a crater). It's hard to imagine anything smaller being resolved by early 20th-century telescopes, ideal viewing conditions or no. Even on Hubble images Martian craters are not very noticeable. |
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