There are also clouds on Venus?And a cloud can exist for thirty years!Why is this?

Venus's Super Power -Maintaining the existence of clouds for more than 30 years

On September 5, 2016, Venus images taken by infrared camera on Akatsuki on Akatsuki, a Japanese universe research and development institution. (Image source: Japan Universe Airlines Research and Development Agency (JAXA))

There are many strange things on Venus. One of the recognizable weather models, scientists now realize that it has been in the atmosphere of Venus for at least 30 years.

The nickname "Giant Black Cloud", the first time scientists noticed that it was characterized by the infrared camera from the Japanese spacecraft Red Moon, which has been running around Venus since 2015. This cloud is very huge and can reach one -third of this planet equatorial latitude. After confirming this feature, scientists are looking for it in a similar infrared observation file in this planet, and found its characteristics in the relevant data of thirty years

Kaifen Mcgoerk, the planetary scientist of the atmosphere and space physics laboratory at the University of Colorado, Kaifen Mcgohrkk, the main author of the new study, told Space.com: "Cloud -layer physics usually runs at a very short time scale ","

He said: "It is strange to observe a characteristic of decades or centuries. In the planet's atmosphere, the natural environment is always changing. If one thing lasted for a long time, it was eye -catching of."

McGaldric pointed out that there are two aspects of giant Wuyun characteristics. He said, "Initially, this is called 'subversion'. This is considered a sharp transformation from bright to dark, which can be repeated," although it extends from the equator to about 30 degrees south latitude, but this change is A few degrees occurred in the longitude. "But there is a huge structure behind it, almost the size of the hemisphere" -This is therefore named a giant black cloud.

The running orbit of this black cloud seems to be different from other clouds of Venus. It will have a impact with Venus every five days, a few days faster than the "background cloud" as Mcgohrk called.

Although the huge Wuyun was first discovered in the data collected by the Red Moon orbital aircraft, the location of the spacecraft was not suitable for cracking the secret of this feature.

Most of the time the detector is quite far from Mars, basically to see the national hemisphere view centered on the equator. And the Red Moon does not carry a key device called a spectrometer. This device allows scientists to analyze the map of light and determine what a strange cloud like this is composed of this.

"It is tricky to figure out what is going on with the data of the Red Moon." Mcgohrdrick said that this feature "continues to appear repeatedly, which has a very similar form, and we can find that it is it is that it is it. How to move around the planet, "" But it is really difficult for us to determine what it has happened. "

McGaldrica said that although astronomers discovered a huge dark clouds from scattered observations on the earth in 1986, these observations were not consistent enough to make scientists patch out the story of the cloud. "They sometimes see that they can't see other times, there are no real laws or reasons, because these observations are very scattered."

A Venus Express spacecraft described by the European Aerospace Office over Venus. (Picture source: European Aerospace Bureau)

Refer to another spacecraft

Mcgohrck and his colleagues decided to find the potential observation results of this strange feature in the data collected by the Venus Express mission. The task studied the planet for the European Space Agency from 2006 to 2014.

There is a instrument on this spacecraft called visible light and infrared thermal imaging spectrometer. Like the red -month device that helps scientists discover huge dark clouds, the device can see infrared light, but it can also make up for chemical analysis data missing in the Red Moon data.

In a new paper based on this work, McGildric and his colleagues used data from Venus Express to try to understand what happened on both sides of the sudden transformation. So far, scientists have only analyzed a small part of the data, but Mcgohrck said that they have begun to put together a picture, depicting the changes in the front clouds and the clouds behind the clouds.

McGaldrica said, for example, this feature seems to affect the proportion of sulfuric acid and water vapor in the clouds, as well as the height of the cloud layer and the size of the particles in the cloud layer.

In addition to analyzing more visible light and infrared thermal imaging spectrometer data, McGoldek said that he and his colleagues hope to be a reality in the near future. The size of the columnar particles. This type of measurement depends on a continuous faulty instrument that scientists are working hard to repair. After the research of Gutrick, the latest progress of the instrument has also been released.

On Venus and Earth

McGaldrica said that although the black cloud observation of black clouds far away from Venus, people who can withstand the harsh conditions of Venus may not notice the change when the cloud passes from the top of the head. Mcgohrck compared the appearance of Venus's surface in the eyes of people's eyes with the common wildfire smoke scenes.

"This is a very limited landscape, and its brightness is very consistent. This is because the spectrometer receives the uniform scattered light in all directions," he said. "If you have a visible light feeling in your eyes, standing on the surface of Venus, you will see this pale and similar color, which may be like most of the time." This scene and infrared vision may be more interesting. McGaldrik said that in this case, the surface of Venus looks like a Disco ballroom on the night of Venus, with deep, dark night sky and super bright ground. There may be huge, dark or other colors. Yun reflects some infrared light from the top.

McGaldrica said that no matter what the huge black cloud looks like, researching it from a distance can also help scientists to better understand the phenomenon of the earth's atmosphere. He said: "(Venus) is indeed the planet that we know the earth in many ways in many ways." "At the same time, it is very different from the earth in many ways."

The atmosphere is just one of them with similar but the same characteristics. For example, Mcgohrck said that although he and his colleagues were not sure what phenomenon caused huge dark clouds, their current hunch is that it is a large -scale atmospheric characteristics called Kelvinbo's large -scale atmospheric characteristics. related.

He said that scientists already know the high level of this wave at the high level of Venus atmosphere. Kaelwen Bo also occurred in the atmosphere of the earth -for example, the complex dynamics behind El Niño and La Niña involves this structure -but on the earth, local weather is already the same, and it is even greater phenomenon. It's hard to be found.

"These really happened on the earth; they were a bit difficult to identify," Mcgoerkki said. "In Venus, they are much more obvious." This commonality may mean that studying Venus atmosphere will also help scientists better understand the earth's atmosphere.

For planets like Venus who are not studying, even if it can recognize a stable atmospheric characteristics, it is a progress.

"It is most important to identify these duplicate models to identify these duplicate models." "If we don't realize these, we can't really understand what happened on the planet. Since we see these Study, something can be analyzed. "

By: Meghan Bartels

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