Author Question: Describe those surface features that indicate water once flowed on Mars. What will be an ideal ... (Read 99 times)

savannahhooper · **on:** Jul 27, 2018

Describe those surface features that indicate water once flowed on Mars.

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Describe the surface features of Venus. If the atmosphere is so thick and the planet is so hot, how do we know about these surface features on Venus?

What will be an ideal response?

jonathanballen97 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 27, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Two kinds of formations hint at water flowing over the surface. Outflow channels appear to have been cut by massive floods carrying as much as 10,000 times the volume of water flowing down the Mississippi River. In a matter of hours or days, such floods swept away landscape features and left outflow channels. The number of craters formed on top of the outflow channels show that they are billions of years old. The valley networks look like meandering riverbeds that may have formed over long period. The valley networks are also located in the old, cratered southern hemisphere, so they must be very old as well. There are other signs that water has flowed on the Martian surface, some of which may be only a few years old

Answer to Question 2

Most of the surface of Venus consists of low, rolling plains and highland regions. Those rolling plains appear to be large-scale smooth lava flows; whereas the highlands are regions of deformed crust. Lava flows seem to have completely resurfaced Venus within approximately the past half-billion years. Signs of volcanism dominate the surface of Venus. Lava channels are common, and they appear similar to the sinuous rilles visible on Earth's Moon. Scientists have identified these features from radar imaging of the surface using instruments on satellites orbiting the planet.