Venus Crater Database
Introduction
The NASA Magellan spacecraft provided synthetic aperture
radar (SAR) image coverage of 98% of the surface of the planet
Venus, in addition to topography and several types of physical
property data on the venusian surface (e.g., radar reflectivity, radar
backscatter, emissivity, and rms slopes).(See Special Magellan Issue
of J. Geophys. Res., v. 97, nos. E8 and E10, August 25 and Sept. 25,
1992.) This Open-File Report contains a listing (table 1) of impact
craters based on interpretation of the Magellan data, and was
compiled with the official sanction of the Magellan Science Team
(Steve Saunders, Magellan Project Scientist, personal
communication, 1990). This crater data base has been revised,
updated, and expanded from those used by the authors in earlier
publications
(Schaber and others, 1992;
Strom and others, 1994).
The database tables include the name (where applied), coordinates, diameter,
modification state, crater morphologic type, and mean elevation of
967 craters interpreted to be of impact origin within the area of the
planet imaged by the Magellan spacecraft between 1990 and 1994.
For more details on interpretations of the Venus impact cratering
record, the reader is referred to
Campbell and others, 1992,
Phillips and others (1991, 1992),
Schaber and others (1992),
Chadwick and Schaber (1993),
Alexopoulos and McKinnon (1994),
Herrick (1994),
Herrick and Phillips (1994),
Nakimi and Solomon (1994),
Price and Suppe (1994),
Strom and others (1994),
Price and others (1996),
Herrick and others (1995), and
Strom and others (1995). An
alternate Venus impact crater data base that includes additional
information on crater morphology has been described by
Herrick and Phillips (1994).
An excellent source for the current thinking about impact craters on
Venus and their implications can be found in the University of Arizona
Press book, Venus II (Bougher and
others - Editors, 1997). Relevant Chapters on impact cratering in
the Venus II book were contributed by
Basilevsky and others (1997),
Herrick and others (1997), and
McKinnon and others (1997).
![[Go to Browse The Solar System: Venus]](../BrowseTheSolarSystem/gifs/venus_s.gif)
Browse The Solar System: Venus