Lachesis Tessera
What Lachesis Tessera is
Lachesis Tessera is a tessera — terrain deformed into a tile-like pattern of ridges and grooves — on Venus, 664 km across, centred at 44.4° N, 59.9° W in the Lachesis Tessera quadrangle. It is the 298th largest named feature on Venus and the 41st largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Greek, one of three Fates. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1985, under the theme it applies to every tessera on Venus. Of the 65 features of this class catalogued on Venus, the naming categories run Greek (10), Slavic (5), Roman (4), Egypt (4).
What it would take to settle Lachesis Tessera
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 44.4° N, 59.9° W.
What this spot has going for it is known ground — 1,579 km from Venera 9 (1975). What works against it is water — same as everywhere else on this world.
Computed from Lachesis Tessera'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 tessera features on Venus
All 65 tesserae on Venus — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.