Latest Geology of Venus Stories

[ Watch a Venus Animation ] ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that our cloud-covered neighbor spins a little slower than previously measured. Peering through the dense atmosphere in the infrared, the orbiter found surface features were not quite where they should be. Using the VIRTIS instrument at infrared wavelengths to penetrate the thick cloud cover, scientists studied surface features and discovered that some were displaced by up to 20 km from where they should be...

For the next few months, Venus will be softly resplendent in the evening sky, a treat for stargazers "“ but looks can be deceiving. Consider this: The Venusian surface is hot enough to melt lead. The planet's 96% carbon dioxide atmosphere is thick and steamy with a corrosive mist of sulfuric acid floating through it. The terrain is forbidding, strewn with craters and volcanic calderas "“ and bone dry.Takeshi Imamura can't wait to get there.Imamura is the project scientist for Akatsuki, a...

Observations by the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission have provided strong new evidence that the solar wind has stripped away significant quantities of water from Earth's twin planet. The data also shed new light on the transfer of trace gases in the Venusian atmosphere and wind patterns.  The results will be presented at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany, on Wednesday September 16.The SPICAV and VIRTIS instruments carried by the spacecraft have been...

An unusual bright spot that has shown up in the clouds on Venus is mystifying astronomers.The spot was found by an amateur on July 19th, and was established as real by the European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft.Information from the European probe implies that the spot emerged four days before it was seen on Earth. The spot has begun to grow, as winds spread the spot around Venus.Scientists are not sure what created the bright spot on the planet. They guess that a volcanic eruption...

Venus Express has charted the first map of Venus's southern hemisphere at infrared wavelengths. The new map hints that our neighboring world may once have been more Earth-like, with both, a plate tectonics system and an ocean of water.The map comprises over a thousand individual images, recorded between May 2006 and December 2007. Because Venus is covered in clouds, normal cameras cannot see the surface, but Venus Express used a particular infrared wavelength that can see through...

Venus is a planet similar in size to the Earth. Nevertheless, it is quite different in other aspects. On the one hand, it spins very slowly on its axis, taking 224 terrestrial days and, moreover, it does so in the opposite direction to that of our planet, i.e. from East to West. Its dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide with surface pressures 90 times that of Earth (equivalent to what we find at 1000 meters below the surface of our oceans), causes a runaway greenhouse effect that raises the...

As ESA's Venus Express orbits our sister planet, new images of the cloud structure of one of the most enigmatic atmospheres of the Solar System reveal brand-new details.Venus is covered by a thick layer of clouds that extends between 45 and 70 km above the surface. These rapidly-moving clouds are mainly composed of micron-sized droplets of sulphuric acid and other aerosols (fine solid or liquid droplets suspended in a gas), the origin of which is unknown. Earlier missions have shown that the...

ESA's Venus Express has measured a highly variable quantity of the volcanic gas sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus. Scientists must now decide whether this is evidence for active volcanoes on Venus, or linked to a hitherto unknown mechanism affecting the upper atmosphere.The search for volcanoes is a long-running thread in the exploration of Venus. "Volcanoes are a key part of a climate system," says Fred Taylor, a Venus Express Interdisciplinary Scientist from Oxford University....

ESA's Venus Express has revealed Venus as never before. For the first time, scientists are able to investigate from the top of its atmosphere, down nearly to the surface. They have shown it to be a planet of surprises that may once have been more Earth-like, and still is, to a certain extent. The latest results from the mission were presented today at a press conference held at ESA headquarters in Paris, and will appear in the 29 November issue of the scientific journal Nature. Permanently...

Venus is a hellish place of high temperatures and crushing air pressure. The European Space Agency's Venus Express mission adds into this mix the first confirmation that the Venusian atmosphere generates its own lightning. The discovery is part of the Venus Express science findings that appear in a special section of the Nov. 29 issue of the journal Nature. "In addition to all the pressure and heat, we can confirm there is lightning on Venus -- maybe even more activity than there is here...