79 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
79 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: VENUS PROBE FINDS EARTHLIKE FEATURES FILE: UFO2179
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=START= XMT: 18:11 Tue Aug 21 EXP: 18:00 Wed Aug 22
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FIRST PICTURES FROM VENUS REVEAL EARTH-LIKE FEATURES
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PASADENA, CA (AUG. 21) REUTER -
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The first pictures from Venus by the space probe Magellan unveiled on Tuesday
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show features similar to Hawaiian volcanoes, the Rhine Valley, the rift
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valleys of East Africa and the earthquake faults of California.
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Scientists said Magellan's radar-produced pictures, displayed at the National
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Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion laboratory, showed
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volcanoes, mountains and huge valleys caused by the shifting of the planet's
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surface.
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They were taken by Magellan last week before the craft inexplicably went off
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the air for 12 hours, giving scientists and engineers a scare.
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Magellan engineer Steve Saunders said scientists were surprised they got so
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much interesting and useful data out of a test run ''which was really designed
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to give us a little sample here and there.''
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''It looks pretty good. But right now I think it's just sort of a crack in
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the door. I'm looking through a little slit down at Venus, and we're seeing
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some things that we've never seen before.
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''We're only looking through a little crack in the door here and we're going
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to open that door a lot wider,'' he added in a reference to the full radar
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mapping of the the planet, which NASA hopes can begin the first week of
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September.
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Venus is known as Earth's ''sister planet'' because of its similar size and
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position in the galaxy, and Magellan found other similarities, Saunders said.
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The space probe produced two radar images of the surface during the test, each
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10s of thousands of km square.
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Using three photographs, or ''mosaics'' produced by scientists from the data,
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Saunders pointed out ridges and valleys. ''We see evidence of volcanic
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materials, probably volcanic floes occupying the floors of these valleys'' he
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said.
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Pictures showed Venus is intensely fractured and faulted. Pointing to lines
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zig-sagging across the surface, he said they were probably ''tinsel
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fractures'' caused by a pulling apart of the crust.
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''It's very typical of a region of extension on the Earth, where we find it in
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the rift valleys in East Africa ... or if you could see the sub-surface in
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the Salt Trough (an earthquake fault) in California.''
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The photographs all showed an area flanking the ''Beta Regio Volcanic
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Highlands.'' Indicating a ''pit crater'' which he said was nine-tenths of a
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mile (1.5 km) Saunders said he believed it to be volcanic in origin and not
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caused by a meteor impact.
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''This is very much like the kind of pit depressions that you find on the
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slopes of Mauna Lea (a Hawaiian volcano), and about the same scale.''
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A huge Venusian valley, called the Devana Chasm, had similar fault patterns to
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those which scientists have mapped in the Rhine Graven region of Germany,
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Saunder said.
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Scientists believe Venus can tell them a lot about the Earth. It is believed
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the planet went through a global warming similar to that which is thought to
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be starting on Earth.
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The temperature of the planet is 900 degrees Fahrenheit (468 centigrade).
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=END=
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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