RE: Venus profile from one of my transit images
June 8, 2012 at 7:03 pm
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2012 at 7:12 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(June 8, 2012 at 10:15 am)orogenicman Wrote: Immediately noticable is how non-circular it is in profile. In addition, note how flat it is in the southwest quadrant as opposed to the northeast. Also, you can see huge mountains (at about 5:30 and 11:00) and deep valleys (particularly at 9:00 and 3:30) and generally a very uneven surface, much more uneven than the Earth is in profile (of course, the profile of the Earth is much subdued because of the presence of the oceans - even so, Venus' profile indicates a huge range of topography). And finally, note that you can see features in the atmosphere, the haze that surrounds the planet in this image. Also note that relative to its size, Venus' atmosphere is much thicker than Earth's, and much more turbulant and uneven in it's apparent thickness. That's one messed up planet, for sure.
Actually, Venus has somewhat less topographic relief compared to the earth. If an image of the entire earth is the height of your entire computer monitor screen set to 1776X1000 pixels , the highest mountain on earth would be less than one pixel high, and deepest valley much less than 1 pixel deep compare to surrounding terrain. The true topological deviation from spheriod of any major planet can not be discerned by eye in an image sized to fit your monitor .
Only with Jupitor and Saturn can you easily discern by eye centrifugal deviation from spheriod of the equatorial bulge. Earth's equatorial bulge would be only about 2 pixles high. You would not be able to see it in a monitor sized image. Venus has practically no rotation. So it has no equatorial bulge. It's as close to a perfect sphere as you can get amongst the planets.
