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Venus · Dorsum · 450th largest named feature

Norwan Dorsa

Wintun (California) light goddess.

What Norwan Dorsa is

Norwan Dorsa is a dorsum — a ridge — on Venus, 450 km across, centred at 65.0° N, 163.0° E in the Atalanta Planitia quadrangle. It is the 450th largest named feature on Venus and the 90th largest of its class there.

Where the name comes from

Wintun (California) light goddess. The International Astronomical Union approved the name in 1997, under the theme it applies to every dorsum on Venus. Of the 99 features of this class catalogued on Venus, the naming categories run Slavic (9), Siberia (8), Greek (6), Lithuania (5).

Feature class
a ridge
Diameter
450 km
about the length of the Grand Canyon
Coordinates
65.0° N, 163.0° E
Planetocentric, on Venus
Name approved
1997
By the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature
Quadrangle
Atalanta Planitia
Map sheet on Venus
Naming category
American
North America

What it would take to settle Norwan Dorsa

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 65.0° N, 163.0° E.

Settlement difficulty here
46.1/ 100
Harder than most of this world
Venus overall
43
3.1 harder than the median site
Ranked
1810th
of 1,985 named places on Venus

What this spot has going for it is known ground 7,706 km from Vega 2 (1985). What works against it is water same as everywhere else on this world.

Computed from Norwan Dorsa'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 dorsum features on Venus

All 99 dorsa on Venus — mapped together, with the naming theme and the size distribution.