Latest Venus Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Astronomers writing in the journal Nature Geoscience say they have been closely monitoring the movement of a huge whirlwind the size of Europe on Venus. Researchers from Universidad del Pais Vasco (UPV) used an instrument on board the European Space Agency's (ESA) Venus Express spacecraft to monitor the evolution of the south pole vortex. The team monitored the movement of the vortex on two separate main cloud levels in Venus'...
[ Watch the Video: NASA Captures Planet Mercury In Color HD ] redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online NASA scientists have used thousands of images acquired by the Messenger probe during its first year in orbit around Mercury in order to create a colorful, high-resolution map of the planet, various media outlets reported on Friday. According to the Daily Mail, the images of Mercury, which appears to be brownish-gray in color when viewed from here on Earth, were taken...
NASA Science NASA has recently discovered a very strange planet. Its days are twice as long as its years. It has a tail like a comet. It is hot enough to melt lead, yet capped by deposits of ice. And to top it all off ... it appears to be pink. The planet is Mercury. Of course, astronomers have known about Mercury for thousands of years, but since NASA's MESSENGER probe went into orbit around Mercury in 2011, researchers feel like they've been discovering the innermost planet all...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online [ Be sure to check out our recent podcasts on Planet Hunting, and The Search For Life Beyond Earth ] The holy grail of planetary astronomy is the elusive Earth-like planet that scientists hope will show that life exists elsewhere in our galaxy. With a growing database of more than 2,000 planet candidates, researchers feel it is only a matter of time before a planet is found with the potential to sustain life. This gives...
Greenhouse Scholars' "Venus de Miles" Bike Ride Fundraising Event Earns Top Ranking in a Competitor Magazine Poll for the State of Illinois BOULDER, Colo., Jan. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What do you get when you mix bike riding and fundraising on the streets north of Chicago? You get one of the top-ranked cycling events in the U.S., according to readers of Competitor magazine. In Fall 2012, Competitor magazine asked its readers to identify their favorite sports-related...
[ 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...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online So it’s December 21st and the world is still here. Does that mean the doomsayers were full of baloney? Or did they just misread the warnings? Perhaps the Mayans knew today’s date was special for some other reason than total annihilation. If so, then you may be happy to know they would have been right. Phil Nicholson, a Cornell University scientist said this week that Venus will be making a second transit across the face of the...
BOCA RATON, Fla., Dec. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- TransMedia Group's worldwide publicity for Venus, the captivatingly adorable "two-faced" cat, including an appearance on NBC Today Show, has resulted in an exciting new contract for the cat's owners with the GUND® division of Enesco, LLC, one of the world's leading manufacturers of stuffed animals for gifts and collectibles. "When there seems to be a new cute kitten gaining YouTube fame each week, it's tough to stand out from the...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers reported in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society that looking at the sunlight reflected off the Moon during the Venus transit this year helped scientists find planets in orbit around other stars. As Venus passed in front of the Sun on June 6, 2012, it hid part of our sun's rotating surface. Because of rotation, the spectrum of the Sun is slightly different on each side. On one side of the sun,...
Latest Venus Reference Libraries
The Pioneer Program is a series of American unmanned space missions designed for planetary exploration. The program included a number of missions, but the most well-known missions were Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. Both Pioneer 10 and 11 explored the outer planets and left our solar system. Both probes carry a gold plaque, depicting a man and a woman and information about the origin of the probes and their creators. The Pioneer probe was named by Stephen A. Saliga, who was chief designer of Air...
The Hard Clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), also known as the quahog, is a bivalve mollusk native to the eastern shores of North America, from Prince Edward Island to the Yucatan Peninsula. Older sources may give it the systematic name Venus mercenaria. It is one of many unrelated bivalves referred to as clams. Hard clams are quite common throughout New England, north into Canada, and all down the Eastern seaboard of the United States to Florida, but are particularly abundant between Cape Cod and...
Terraforming -- Terraforming (literally, "Earth-shaping") is the process of modifying a planet, moon or other body to a more habitable atmosphere, temperature or ecology. The term was first used in a science fiction novel, 'Seetee Shock' (1940?) by Jack Williamson, but the actual concept is older than that. An example in fiction is 'First and Last Men' by Olaf Stapledon in which Venus is modified, after a long and destructive war with the original inhabitants, who naturally object to the...
The Planet Venus -- in astronomy, 2d planet from the sun; it is often called the evening star or morning star and is brighter than any object in the sky except the sun and the moon. Because its orbit lies between the sun and the orbit of the earth, Venus passes through phases like those of the moon, varying from a large bright crescent when the planet is near inferior conjunction (nearest the earth) to a smaller silvery disk when it is at superior conjunction (farthest from the earth)....
Earth -- in geology and astronomy, fifth largest planet of the solar system and the only planet definitely known to support life. Gravitational forces have molded the earth, like all celestial bodies, into a spherical shape. However, the earth is not an exact sphere, being slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator. The equatorial diameter is c.7,926 mi (12,760 km) and the polar diameter 7,900 mi (12,720 km); the circumference at the equator is c.24,830 mi (40,000 km)....
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