APOD: Cylindrical Mountains on Venus (2016 Oct 16)

[APOD Robot]

Cylindrical Mountains on Venus

Explanation: What could cause a huge cylindrical mountain to rise from the surface of Venus? Such features that occur on Venus are known as coronas. Pictured here in the foreground is 500-kilometer wide Atete Corona found in a region of Venus known as the Galindo. The featured image was created by combining multiple radar maps of the region to form a computer-generated three-dimensional perspective. The series of dark rectangles that cross the image from top to bottom were created by the imaging procedure and are not real. The origin of massive coronas remains a topic of research although speculation holds they result from volcanism. Studying Venusian coronas help scientists better understand the inner structure of both Venus and Earth.

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[Chris Peterson]

Lots of malformed links in this caption that need to be fixed.

[geckzilla]

Strange, I couldn't find a single malformed link.

[Joe Stieber]

I didn't find any bad links either.

[Stevie]

The conspiracy theorists will have a field day with the dark rectangles!

[Guest]

Are the vertical elevations of the structures in this image exaggerated? If so, by how much?

[Uwe]

Venus - one hell of a planet .

[ygmarchi]

apod always amazing. I wish we went back to Venus soon.

[rstevenson]

Are the vertical elevations of the structures in this image exaggerated? If so, by how much?

It certainly looks like that is the case.

I did a rough measurement from the original image (found from the "featured image" link). The height of the very white cliff of the nearest large blob (in the right-foreground) is about 1/8 the width, and the width is 450km, according to the JPL description. So the hight is roughly 55km. I recall seeing an article somewhere online about Mercury in which the fault cliffs were said to rise for "several kilometers". I don't think they meant 55km. I'd guess the height is exagerated here by a factor of 10 or so.

Rob

[heehaw]

Vertical exaggeration! So many pictures are, well, falsified. Always for noble reasons, of course. I remember reading of a tourist complaining, in a tour of Virginia's Luray Caverns, at the guide using UV to cause rocks to fluoresce. "Not natural! I want the natural appearance," he said. The guide agreed, and obligingly turned off all of the lights.

[Chris Peterson]

Strange, I couldn't find a single malformed link.

Yeah. Weird. About half the links when I first tried were broken. A kind of broken I've seen before, where they looked like a local link with a URL tacked on the end. I was wondering if the vertical scale was exaggerated, and couldn't get to the "featured image" without editing the link. Fine now, though. Must have just caught the server acting up briefly.

[Cousin Ricky]

This image just screams vertical exaggeration at me, but I can't find any text stating so.

[Hack Scribbler]

I think they're eons-old impact craters.

[Chris Peterson]

This image just screams vertical exaggeration at me, but I can't find any text stating so.

If you look at the linked geological map, the vertical range of the structure is no more than 3 km. So it's clearly been very exaggerated.

EDIT: here's the altimetry map, with Atete Corona circled.

[Coil_Smoke]

The conspiracy theorists will have a field day with the dark rectangles!

More curious than those projection calibration marks is the path winding across and up the floor of Atete Carona ...

[bystander]

Strange, I couldn't find a single malformed link.

Yeah. Weird. About half the links when I first tried were broken. A kind of broken I've seen before, where they looked like a local link with a URL tacked on the end. I was wondering if the vertical scale was exaggerated, and couldn't get to the "featured image" without editing the link. Fine now, though. Must have just caught the server acting up briefly.

I fixed the links here last night after seeing Chris's first post. The APOD page source has many links preceded with a space (href=" ). Everywhere that occurred in the source, the link here was preceded with 'http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/%20'.

[geoffrey.landis]

There are, I'm told, good reasons for vertical exaggeration, but I really wish that this would be explicitly called out when it is done.

[JohnD]

No idea about links; vertical exaggeration just lets you see the formation when otherwise you couldn't.

What as these "coronas"? The only Earthlike formation I can think of is a volcanic plug, frozen magma in an eroded volcano, but then I'm no geologist.

JOhn

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

No idea about links; vertical exaggeration just lets you see the formation when otherwise you couldn't.

What as these "coronas"? The only Earthlike formation I can think of is a volcanic plug, frozen magma in an eroded volcano, but then I'm no geologist.

[Boomer12k]

Possible hot spot underneath. Maybe Venusian plate movement, and pressure...maybe large Magma Chamber underneath, like Yellowstone National Park...

Hey.... HOT SPRINGS.... goin' ta Venus...ah'm gonna be rich!!!!!

My guesses...

:---[===] *

[Boomer12k]

Love the Alien "space port" indicators....just follow the hash marks...

:---[===] *

[leon.l7027@gmail.com]

Puts me in mind of the giant Yellowstone caldera.

[Astronymus]

Looks like rock plates wobbling above calderae. As Venus has no earthlike tectonics this may be the way für the planet to release "pressure".

Venus may be a pressure cooker. Would explain all those vapors in the atmosphere.

[jhagerty@juno.com]

The conspiracy theorists will have a field day with the dark rectangles!

It's obviously the start of the trans-Venusian railway.

- Jack

[Rathkennamike]

I think they're eons-old impact craters.

I agree, the item front and just off centre looks like an impact crater (vertical exagguration accepted)