Encyclopedia of Planetary Science pp 163-164 | Cite as
Corona (venus)
A corona (pl. coronae) is a volcanotectonic landform that is apparently unique to Venus in the solar system. Named for the Latin word for garland or crown, coronae are large circular to oval features distinguished by a subconcentric ring of ridges and grooves that is elevated a few hundred meters above surrounding topography. Most coronae have numerous volcanic structures, particularly small domes, inside the ring and a topographic moat a few hundred meters deep just outside the ring. Coronae generally range from 100 to 600 km in diameter with a median of about 200 km (Ivanov and Basilevsky, 1990), although a few coronae over 1000 km have been identified. The ring of ridges and grooves and the surrounding moat are usually tens of kilometers wide.
Although recognizable in earlier Earth-based radar imagery, coronae were not identified as unique structures until after the Soviet Venera 15 and 16 missions, and were originally called ovoids for their oval shape (Barsukov et al., 1986;...
Bibliography
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