It ain’t much but it’s honest work 👨‍🌾 Gaze upon the aptly named "Crater Farm" of Venus. This trio of craters on the surface of Venus is caused by the uniquely dense atmosphere of the planet. The thick atmosphere serves as a bulwark against incoming meteorites, breaking them up as they approach the planet’s surface and causing the close cluster of impact craters pictured. Despite the Crater Farm being one of the planet's most famous locales, Venus has fewer meteor impact craters than the rest of its solar system siblings. Newer estimates reveal that the planet’s extreme volcanic and tectonic forces have reshaped the surface of Venus to an average age of about 150 million years—effectively erasing most traces of its early surface and craters. The Crater Farm was observed by our Magellan spacecraft in 1991. Magellan, named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, scanned over 98% of the surface of Venus in a series of mapping cycles. After successfully surpassing its mission parameters, the spacecraft was commanded to dive into the dense Venusian atmosphere to capture further data. It would be a one-way trip, as after collecting atmospheric data, it burned up in the dense atmosphere of the planet. Image Description: “The Crater Farm” on the surface of Venus. The torrid volcanic surface of Venus is dominated by craters. The rigid landscape of the planet is shades of brick-like red and hues of orange. Around the impact craters of meteorites, orange hues make way for shades of yellow. Like a bullseye, the center of the impact alternates between a ring of orange and a center circle of yellow. Credit: NASA/JPL #NASA #Space #Venus #Magellan #SolarSystem #Planet #Atmosphere #Crater #Meteor #Volcano