Latest Venus Express Stories

[ Watch the Video: What is Venus? ] John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online At the very edges of the Earth’s atmosphere, where the Earth’s magnetic field begins, solar radiation strips electrons from the tenuous gas that is slowly leaking into space. This region, known as the ionosphere is famously responsible for allowing terrestrial radio transmissions over great distances. During World War II, for example, radio operators would “bounce” signals off...

[Watch the Video: A Day in the Life of Venus Express] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a video of a day in the life of the Venus Express, the spacecraft currently orbiting the second planet from the Sun. The video begins with a view 41,000 miles above Venus’ south pole, looking down at its southern polar vortex. "From this bird’s-eye view, half of the planet is in darkness, the ‘terminator’ marking the dividing...

[ Watch the Video: From The Pampas to the Stars ] redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online The official inauguration of a new European Space Agency (ESA) tracking station capable of monitoring missions traveling hundreds of millions of miles into our Solar System is set for Tuesday. The facility, which is located in approximately 745 miles west of Buenos Aires in the city of Malargüe, Argentina, features a nearly 115 foot diameter, 610 metric ton antenna that can...

European Space Agency Report One of the world’s most sophisticated satellite tracking stations is nearing inauguration in Malargüe, Argentina, 1000 km west of Buenos Aires. The new station will ensure reliable communications with missions voyaging hundreds of millions of kilometers into our Solar System. ESA’s new tracking station, near the town of Malargüe in Mendoza province, joins two existing stations in Spain and Australia to provide global coverage for the Agency’s...

Venus is a rarity among planets - a world that does not internally generate a magnetic field. Despite the absence of a large protective magnetosphere, the near-Venus environment does exhibit a number of similarities with planets such as Earth. The latest, surprising, example is the evidence for magnetic reconnection in Venus' induced magnetotail. Planets which generate magnetic fields in their interiors, such as Earth, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn, are surrounded by invisible...

A chance alignment of planets during a passing gust of the solar wind has allowed scientists to compare the protective effects of Earth’s magnetic field with that of Mars’ naked atmosphere. The result is clear: Earth’s magnetic field is vital for keeping our atmosphere in place. The alignment took place on 6 January 2008. Using ESA’s Cluster and Mars Express missions to provide data from Earth and Mars, respectively, scientists compared the loss of oxygen from the two planets’...

[ Watch the Video ] Venus, often referred to as Earth’s sister planet due to its similar size, gravity, and composition, has been discovered by astronomers to also have a type of space weather event that is commonly found on Earth: a hot flow anomaly or HFA. HFAs are generally associated with the magnetosphere of a planet, such as Earth. But where Venus has no magnetosphere, the phenomenon surprised astronomers. The astronomers, reporting their findings from a recent study in the...

The MESSENGER spacecraft successfully completed its fourth orbit-correction maneuver today to increase the period of the spacecraft's orbit around the innermost planet from 11 hours 46 minutes to a precise 12 hours. MESSENGER was 198 million kilometers (123 million miles) from Earth when the 159-second maneuver began at 6:12 p.m. EDT. Mission controllers at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., verified the start of the maneuver about 11 minutes, 1...

[ Watch the Video ] The European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft has discovered an ozone layer in the atmosphere of Venus. The spacecraft made the discovery while watching stars from the edge of the planet seen through its atmosphere. SPICAV, an instrument aboard Venus Express, analyzed the starlight and found characteristic fingerprints of gases in the atmosphere as they absorbed light. ESA said the ozone was detectable because it absorbed some of the ultraviolet from the...

New analysis of images taken by ESA's Venus Express orbiter has revealed surprising details about the remarkable, shape-shifting collar of clouds that swirls around the planet's South Pole. This fast-moving feature is all the more surprising since its center of rotation is typically offset from the geographical pole. The results of this study are published online in Science Express today. Several planets in the Solar System, including Earth, have been found to possess hurricane-like polar...