लाइव
Venus · Chasma · 718th largest named feature

Chang Xi Chasmata

Chinese, gave birth to twelve moons.

What Chang Xi Chasmata is

Chang Xi Chasmata is a chasma — a deep, steep-sided canyon — on Venus, 220 km across, centred at 59.0° S, 17.0° E in the Lada Terra quadrangle. It is the 718th largest named feature on Venus and the 62nd largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Chinese, gave birth to twelve moons. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1997, under the theme it applies to every chasma on Venus. Of the 63 features of this class catalogued on Venus, the naming categories run Siberia (5), Slavic (4), Caucasus (4), Greek (3).

Feature class
a deep, steep-sided canyon
Diameter
220 km
about the length of the Grand Canyon
Coordinates
59.0° S, 17.0° E
Planetocentric, on Venus
Name approved
1997
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Quadrangle
Lada Terra
Map sheet on Venus
Naming category
China
Asia

What it would take to settle Chang Xi Chasmata

Venus scores 43 as a world. That number is the same for every square metre of it — but sunlight, water, radiation and the ground under your feet are not. This is the same question asked at 59.0° S, 17.0° E.

Settlement difficulty here
46.6/ 100
Harder than most of this world
Venus overall
43
3.6 harder than the median site
Ranked
1869th
of 1,985 named places on Venus

What this spot has going for it is known ground 7,074 km from Venera 14 (1982). What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Chang Xi Chasmata's catalogued latitude, longitude and feature class — 74% of the model's weight had a basis here, and 2 axes were dropped as not applicable to Venus (radiation geometry, earth link). Gravity, pressure, delta-v and distance from the Sun are the same everywhere on Venus and are already counted in the world's own index, not again here.

What this cannot see: elevation. Slope, local shadowing and the polar “peaks of eternal light” — ridge tops near the poles of a barely tilted world that catch sun almost continuously while a crater floor kilometres away never does — need a terrain model this does not have. Where a real mission targets a pole, that is usually why.

What is next to it

The largest chasma features on Venus

All 63 chasmata on Venus — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.