An astronomer has observed a huge wall of acid clouds on Venus. The structure is about 8,000 kilometers long, crosses the equator of Venus and moves at high speed at an altitude of about 50-58 kilometers above the surface.
The phenomenon was first discovered only in 2016 by the Japanese Akatsuki spacecraft, and now amateur astronomer Luigi Moroni photographed it on July 17 from Agerola, Italy.
the Newsweek According to his report, the phenomenon appears as a sharp contrast in the cloud pattern and moves westward around the planet. It can also be detected at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, so it can also be observed using various space-based instruments and ground-based telescopes.
It also moves at very high speeds, making a complete orbit around the planet in about five Earth days. By comparison, the planet rotates on its axis in 243 Earth days.
Mysterious phenomenon on Venus
According to NASA, this strange phenomenon has been around since the 1980s and into the 20th century. NASA It travels around the planet at a speed of about 330 kilometers per hour.
“It was already seen in the K band during the first nocturnal observations of Venus in the 1980s, but we first identified it through the Akacuki/IR2 images. Furthermore, re-examination of Venus Express data confirmed that it was indeed present on the planet around 2006-2008.
“This atmospheric turbulence is a new atmospheric phenomenon that we haven’t seen on other planets,” said Javier Peralta, a scientist at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency who first spotted the structure. They’re still not sure why the wall formed or what’s pushing it around the planet so quickly. “This atmospheric turbulence is a new atmospheric phenomenon that we haven’t seen on other planets,” Peralta told spaceweather.com. “We’re still not sure exactly what it is.”
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