NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has captured a photo of Venus.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON — The first time an instrument from the American Space Agency (NASA) took photos of the surface of the Planet Venus. So far, the cloud-shrouded surface of the planet Venus is usually only visible through advanced radar or infrared imaging from orbit.
However, two flybys recently, spaceship Parker Solar probe NASA captured the image. Using the Wide Field Imager (WISPR) camera, the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft can capture the entire night side Venus in the visible spectrum.
NASA says the WISPR images show features on Venus’ surface, such as the continental region of Aphrodite Terra, the Tellus Regio plateau, and the Aino Planitia plain. According to NASA records, areas with higher elevations are about 85 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than areas at lower altitudes. The higher ground appears as a dark patch in the center of the lighter lowlands.
A paper detailing probe imaging is reported in a new paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“Venus is the third-brightest object in the sky, but to date we don’t have much information about what its surface looks like because our view is blocked by the thick atmosphere,” said Brian Wood, lead author of the new study and a physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. DC said in a statement, quoted by Forbes, Thursday (10/2/2022).
WISPR took its first image of Venus in July 2020. The camera is designed to spot faint features in the sun’s atmosphere and winds. However, WISPR is also expected to be able to photograph the cloud tops covering Venus as the Parker Solar Probe passes through the planet.
“The goal was to measure cloud velocity,” said WISPR project scientist Angelos Vourlidas, co-author on the new paper and researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
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