Related papers: Venus Cloud Research: Progress and Perspectives
This paper details a significant milestone towards maturing a buoyant aerial robotic platform, or aerobot, for flight in the Venus clouds. We describe two flights of our subscale altitude-controlled aerobot, fabricated from the materials…
We present the detection and characterisation of mesoscale waves on the lower clouds of Venus using images from the Visible Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer onboard the European Venus Express space mission and from the 2 $\mu$m camera…
The superrotation of the atmosphere of Venus requires a large torque on the up- per atmosphere. Mechanisms for providing a net balancing of this through waves or ionospheric motions to other parts of the atmosphere have been proposed but…
This document is the EnVision Venus orbiter proposal, submitted in October 2016 in response to ESA's M5 call for Medium-size missions for its Science Programme, for launch in 2029. Why are the terrestrial planets so different? Venus should…
Polar vortices are common in the atmospheres of rapidly rotating planets [1-4]. On Earth and Mars they are tied to the surface and their existence follows the seasonal insolation cycle [1-3]. Venus is a slowly rotating planet but it is also…
The data of 2012 transit of Venus are compared with the ones of 2004. The thickness of the atmosphere of Venus, its aureole and the effect of oblateness and other asphericities in the figure of the Sun are taken into consideration, as well…
In recent years, a vast increase in spectroscopic observations of transiting exoplanets has for the first time allowed us to search for broad trends in their atmospheric properties. Analysis of these observations has revealed that, even for…
Finding evidence of extraterrestrial life would be one of the most profound scientific discoveries ever made, advancing humanity into a new epoch of cosmic awareness. The Venus Life Finder (VLF) missions feature a series of three direct…
High spectral resolution observations of Venus were obtained with the TEXES instrument at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility. These observations focus on a CO$_2$ absorption feature at 791.4 cm$^{-1}$ as the shape of this absorption feature…
Volcanism on Venus has never been directly observed, but several measurements indicate present-day activity. Volcanism could potentially play a role in climatic processes on Venus, especially in the sulfur cycle like on Earth. Observation…
Observations from the Juno and Cassini missions provide essential constraints on the internal structures and compositions of Jupiter and Saturn, resulting in profound revisions of our understanding of the interior and atmospheres of Gas…
An unknown absorber near the cloud top level of Venus generates a broad absorption feature from the ultraviolet (UV) to visible, peaking around 360 nm, and therefore plays a critical role in the solar energy absorption. We present a…
Context. Reflected light from a spatially unresolved planet yields unique insight into the overall optical properties of the planet cover. Glories are optical phenomena caused by light that is backscattered within spherical droplets…
The transit of Venus in 2004 offered the rare possibility to remotely sense a well-known planetary atmosphere using ground-based observations for absorption spectroscopy. Transmission spectra of Venus' atmosphere were obtained in the near…
The knowledge of the Venus near-surface atmosphere is sparse. Few spacecrafts landed on the surface and measured winds with amplitudes below 1 m/s. The diurnal cycle of the wind amplitude and orientation is not known. Recent numerical…
Sulfur dioxide is a radiatively and chemically important trace gas in the atmosphere of Venus and its abundance at the cloud-tops has been observed to vary on interannual to decadal timescales. This variability is thought to come from…
Understanding the physical characteristics of Venus, including its atmosphere, interior, and its evolutionary pathway with respect to Earth, remains a vital component for terrestrial planet evolution models and the emergence and/or decline…
We report a model study on the effects of clouds on emission spectra of super-Venus planets. Our goal is to assess possible ways to identify characteristic spectral features due to clouds. We show that it is possible to distinguish an…
The potential detection of ppb levels phosphine (PH3) in the clouds of Venus through millimeter-wavelength astronomical observations is extremely surprising as PH3 is an unexpected component of an oxidized environment of Venus. A thorough…
Uranus provides a unique laboratory to test our understanding of planetary atmospheres under extreme conditions. Multi-spectral observations from Voyager, ground-based observatories, and space telescopes have revealed a delicately banded…