An interactive globe of Venus rendered from radar observation, the principal means of surface imaging beneath an opaque cloud deck. The base layer is the Magellan synthetic-aperture-radar mosaic; relief and the elevation overlay derive from Magellan GTDR altimetry. Named features and the Venera and Vega landing sites are selectable; the literature feed is retrieved at run time.
The sphere is rendered in Three.js at the IAU mean radius of 6051.8 km, scaled to scene units. The sulphuric-acid cloud deck is opaque at visible wavelengths, so the base layer is the Magellan synthetic-aperture-radar mosaic (C3-MDIR, 2025 m/px), in which brightness encodes radar backscatter: rough lava flows and steep slopes are bright, smooth plains dark. Orbit-gap seams in the source mosaic are nodata and are filled by iterative neighbour interpolation; a Venera-derived tint is applied.
Relief is a vertex displacement driven by the Magellan GTDR v02 altimetry (4641 m/px), whose data range spans −2.951 to +11.687 km about the 6051.0 km datum — radii of 6048.0 to 6062.7 km, the maximum at Maxwell Montes. Total amplitude is 0.24 % of the radius; an exaggeration factor scales it. The same altimetry drives the Elevation hypsometric overlay. Rotation is retrograde with a sidereal period of 243.02 d and a mean solar day of 116.75 d; the idle spin is reversed accordingly. Textures are read from Maps/textures/venus_color_*.jpg and Data/worlds/venus/layers/.
Feature names and coordinates are taken from the USGS/IAU Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature via Data/worlds/venus/features.json: the highland continents Ishtar Terra and Aphrodite Terra, the shield volcanoes Maat, Sif and Gula Mons, coronae and tessera terrain, the rift chasmata, and the Soviet Venera and Vega landing sites, the only sites of in-situ measurement on the surface. Each is placed by IAU coordinate. The literature panel queries body_server.py at /api/venus/latest (NASA ADS, with arXiv as fallback); a per-feature endpoint returns recent papers on the selected feature. Absent a server, the seed research.json and ADS search links are substituted. The engine, server and data schema are shared with the Moon and Mercury globes.
Markers follow the IAU east-positive convention, longitude 0–360° E. The radar mosaic and the altimetry are both centred on 0°, so no offset is applied. Registration is checked against Maxwell Montes (65.2° N, 3.3° E) in Ishtar Terra and against the equatorial extent of Aphrodite Terra; a single longitude-offset constant accommodates a mosaic centred differently.
Venus is marked in cyan on a live map of the uniquely-named solar-system bodies — planets, dwarf planets, named comets, and the 26,061 named minor planets catalogued as of 19 June 2026 — with the interstellar objects and escaping spacecraft, each at its current position and linked to its source.
body_server.py