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PIA00471: Venus - Complex Lava Flows at Sif Mons
Target Name: Venus
Is a satellite of: Sol (our sun)
Mission: Magellan
Spacecraft: Magellan
Instrument: Imaging Radar
Product Size: 2082 samples x 1736 lines
Produced By: JPL
Producer ID: P38169
Addition Date: 1996-10-23
Primary Data Set: Magellan MIDRs
Full-Res TIFF: PIA00471.tif (2.88 MB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA00471.jpg (1.538 MB)

Click on the image to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original).

Original Caption Released with Image:
This is a full resolution mosaic centered at 25 degrees north latitude, 351 east longitude. The region is approximately 160 kilometers (100 miles) across. It shows a series of complex lava flows which emerge from the northern flank of Sif Mons, a large volcano just to the south. Several of the flows occupy narrow troughs formed by long fractures. A sequence of events that can be inferred from this image is the formation of the dark background plains by eruptions of extremely fluid volcanic material, and the formation of the small shield volcanoes on the plains surface that can be seen in the upper left part of the image. Next, the region was domed upward probably by heat from the interior of Venus that ultimately caused magmas to break out from the surface near the summit regions forming the Sif volcanic structure and its associated flank eruptions which can be seen in this image.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL


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