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Venus · Fossa · 816th largest named feature

Zheztyrnak Fossae

Kazakh evil deity, "copper claw" maiden.

What Zheztyrnak Fossae is

Zheztyrnak Fossae is a fossa — a long, narrow depression — on Venus, 180 km across, centred at 67.5° S, 178.0° W in the Barrymore quadrangle. It is the 816th largest named feature on Venus and the 30th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Kazakh evil deity, "copper claw" maiden. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2000, under the theme it applies to every fossa on Venus. Of the 31 features of this class catalogued on Venus, the naming categories run Greek (4), Norse (3), Siberia (2), Slavic (2).

Feature class
a long, narrow depression
Diameter
180 km
about 1.8 times the width of Yellowstone
Coordinates
67.5° S, 178.0° W
Planetocentric, on Venus
Name approved
2000
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Quadrangle
Barrymore
Map sheet on Venus
Naming category
Kazakhstan
Asia

What it would take to settle Zheztyrnak Fossae

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 67.5° S, 178.0° W.

Settlement difficulty here
46.5/ 100
Harder than most of this world
Venus overall
43
3.5 harder than the median site
Ranked
1858th
of 1,985 named places on Venus

What this spot has going for it is known ground 6,383 km from Vega 2 (1985). What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Zheztyrnak Fossae'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 fossa features on Venus

All 31 fossae on Venus — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.