#mount maxwell

[lawrenhyder]

Furness Road, June 2019

[zeviceroy]

Planet Venus

By far the brightest starlike object in the night sky, the planet Venus appears only during or just after sunset, and before and during sunrise. 

More often mistaken for a UFO, it is one of only 3 objects in the night sky that casts a reflection in water (the other two rather obviously being the Sun and the Moon). 

The reason Venus only appears near the sun rise/set, is because as the 2nd planet to the sun, it’s orbit from earth, always appears to be near to the sun, although at it’s furthest it can be visible for a few hours before/after.

Before the advent of space travel and powerful telescopes, Venus was often imagined as a hot jungle planet, particularly as it was a similar size to the planet earth, but this image couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The surface temperature is an average 460′c, hot enough to melt lead, and the heavy CO2 atmosphere is 92 times earth pressure, and oh .. did I mention it rains Acid ? Such that it would render a human baked, squashed and dissolved fairly quickly. 

Despite this, the Russians managed to land a few probes on the surface, which spectacularly lasted between 1 - 2 hours on the surface.

Although the image appears to show a flat rocky surface, Venus is anything but, in fact the largest mountain in the Solar System (not counting volcano’s) exist on the surface of Venus.

In the top left hand corner, Mount Maxwell is in fact higher than mount Everest on Earth, and there are various areas of Venus that show active volcanic regions, despite the fact the planet today appears to be fairly inert. 

Today in popular culture, Venus sadly gets represented only by it’s false colour image, this was created to show the features of the planet, but in reality, Venus is covered in a thick cloud covering, which could be said to make the planet look rather boring (see top picture).

Other interesting facts about the planet Venus is, that it has no Moon, and so unlike the earth that spins on it’s axis by 23.5 degrees, Venus tumbles at 177 degree’s. Additionally, unlike Earth that spins anticlockwise in 24 hours, Venus spins backwards and takes 243 earth days to complete a single day rotation. It is believed the lack of a moon is partially responsible for Venus’s odd behaviour.

So Earths Twin it isn’t !!! 

[foxinthefire]

Mount Maxwell, Salt Spring Island

[hueytones]

MOUNT MAXWELL LIFE AFFIRMATION, SALT SPRING ISLAND 2K15

[hueytones]

MOUNT MAXWELL, SALT SPRING ISLAND 2K15

[feet-of-clay]

The view from here. Mount Maxwell, Salt Spring Island, BC.

[hikewith]

Mount Maxwell and the Slims River valley from Sheep Mountain - Kluane, Yukon. Photo by Gee Kay.

[bcparks]

Mt Maxwell Cliffs - East by Laríssa on Flickr.