Venusian Scenery

When I was first getting seriously into written SF, Carl Sagan was on PBS with his groundbreaking series, Cosmos.

As he explained in the episode entitled "Heaven and Hell," the surface of Venus is 900 degrees (F) and subject to crushing pressure. A far cry from the fertile swamps of Heinlein's Venus in Between Planets, an early favorite of mine.

Don Mitchell has reprocessed some of the raw image data from the Soviet Venera 9, 10, 13, and 14 landers. Not nearly as stunning as the Martian surface, but still it has an austere beauty.

(Hat tip: Jerry Pournelle).