The American spacecraft “Parker” captured Venus, and NASA published footage documenting the red-hot red radiation passing through toxic clouds on the planet’s surface, Science Alert reported.
The footage allows specialists to peek under the dense atmosphere to geological features such as hills, plateaus, plains. They expect the data to help them study the minerals that make up the planet.
“Venus is the third brightest point in the sky, but until recently we did not have much information about what its surface looks like due to the dense atmosphere. Now we finally see the surface for the first time in visible wavelengths from space, “said astrophysicist Brian Wood of the US Naval Research Laboratory.
Venus is close to Earth and has a similar size, mass, structure and composition to our planet, but is extremely hostile to life. Its surface is dry with temperatures averaging 471 degrees Celsius. The clouds are dense and toxic, and it rains acid rain.
Landing craft were sent to Venus, which melted on landing, and because of the thick clouds, observations are very complicated. That’s why Parker’s WISPR surprised experts by taking pictures of the night side last year, which seemed to show surface relief through the clouds. He also detected temperature variations.
“It’s so hot that the rocky surface visibly glows, like iron taken out of a furnace,” explains Wood.
The task of the Parker spacecraft is to study the Sun, and Venus’s observations are almost random. The probe uses the planet to repel itself and maneuver. So far, she has made five of the seven on her schedule, with only two of them suitable for night-time observations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxplGQEORS0
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