Venusian Mountain Maxwell Montes

This is a radar image of Maxwell Montes, a mountain range on the planet Venus, that was made by transmitting a signal at 13 cm wavelength from Arecibo and using the GBT to detect the reflection off the surface. This mountain range contains the highest point on Venus, peaking at 11 km. The mountains reflect radio waves better, thus appear brighter, than the surrounding terrain. This increase in reflectivity at high altitudes occurs at other high areas on Venus is not well understood. The circular feature in the bottom center is a 100 km wide impact crater.

The resolution of this image is about 1 km.

Legacy Astronomical Images

NRAO/AUI/NSF does not hold full copyright for this image. Contact the archivist for details.

Legacy Astronomical Image

Venus

Campbell et al., NRAO, NAIC

Donald Campbell, Jean-Luc Margot, Lynn Carter, Bruce Campbell

Green Bank Telescope (GBT)

Arecibo

2001-00-00

continuum

RA 25:0:0.000, Dec: 0:0:0.000 (J2000)

Solar System Series

Planets Unit