Ignirtoq Tholi
What Ignirtoq Tholi is
Ignirtoq Tholi is a tholus — a small domical mountain or hill — on Venus, 90 km across, centred at 51.0° S, 137.2° W in the Barrymore quadrangle. It is the 991st largest named feature on Venus and the 22nd largest of its class there.
Where the name comes from
Inuit lightning goddess (in some myths â god of light and truth). The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 2023, under the theme it applies to every tholus on Venus. Of the 62 features of this class catalogued on Venus, the naming categories run Greek (5), Slavic (4), New Zealand (3), Japan (3).
What it would take to settle Ignirtoq Tholi
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 51.0° S, 137.2° W.
What this spot has going for it is known ground — 6,073 km from Vega 2 (1985). What works against it is water — same as everywhere else on this world.
Computed from Ignirtoq Tholi'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 tholus features on Venus
All 62 tholi on Venus — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.