If you’re a fan of spacecraft selfies captured with planets in the background (yes, it’s a thing) then you can add this to your portfolio of favorites: it’s the bright limb of Venus captured by ESA/JAXA’s BepiColombo spacecraft during a gravity-assist flyby on August 10, 2021 from a distance of 1,573 kilometers/977 miles. This view…
Tag: Venus
Phosphine Discovery in Venus’ Atmosphere Raises the Big Question of Life
Today an international team of scientists led by Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in the UK announced the discovery of phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of our neighboring planet Venus — a detection made using data from ground-based telescopes located in Hawaii and Chile. On Earth, phosphine is created for industrial uses in labs and by…
Proposed VERITAS Mission Would Reveal Truths About Venus’ Geology
Earth and Venus travel around the Sun in neighboring orbits and both are rocky planets about the same size, but there the similarities end—at least in how the two worlds exist today. Venus’ desiccated surface roasts at nearly 900 degrees Fahrenheit beneath an opaque and crushing atmosphere over 90 times denser than Earth’s, and global…
Mariner 10’s View of Venus from 1974, Revisited and Remastered
(News from NASA) As it sped away from Venus, NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft captured this seemingly peaceful view of a planet the size of Earth, wrapped in a dense, global cloud layer. But, contrary to its serene appearance, the clouded globe of Venus is a world of intense heat, crushing atmospheric pressure and clouds of…
NASA Looks to Partner with Russia on Venus Exploration
In its long history of space exploration the United States has never had a robotic mission sent to the surface of Venus. Flybys, orbiting spacecraft, and atmospheric probes yes, but to date nothing from NASA has operated on the extreme, hellish surface of the second rock from the Sun. Russia, on the other hand, has successfully landed…
Clementine: Lost and Gone Forever, But Never Forgotten!
One of my all-time favorite space images is this little gem from the Clementine mission to the Moon, launched January 25, 1994. It features a view from beyond the far side of the Moon, illuminated by reflected light off the Earth off frame to the left. The Moon is blocking the disc of the Sun with the glow…
Venus’ Water Has Been Electrified Away
Using data gathered by ESA’s Venus Express researchers have determined what likely happened to Venus’ water: it was “zapped” away by a surprisingly strong electric field generated by the planet’s atmosphere and the incoming solar wind. Without a protective magnetosphere like Earth has, Venus’ upper atmosphere directly interacts with energetic particles streaming out from the Sun. The…
Mission Update: SUCCESS! Akatsuki Is In Orbit Around Venus!
After some tense moments tonight at JAXA HQ, it has been determined that the spacecraft Akatsuki has performed the necessary thruster burn to establish orbit around Venus! Congratulations Akatsuki and JAXA!
Japan’s AKATSUKI Will Get a Second Chance at Venus Next Week
Note: this is a repost of an article from Feb. 2015 with a couple of updates. If any of you remember it back in Dec. 2010 Japan’s Venus Climate Orbiter spacecraft AKATSUKI (aka Planet-C), after a five and a half month journey through space, failed to enter orbit around Venus due to a faulty thruster nozzle….
Ground-Based Radar Reveals the Surface of Venus
These days if you look toward the west after sunset you’ll see a bright star that’s the first to appear in the sky – except it’s not a star at all but our neighboring planet, Venus. Covered in a dense layer of thick clouds, Venus not only reflects a lot of sunlight but also keeps its…
This Is the First Color Image from the Surface of Venus
The surface of Venus is definitely no easy place to which to send a spacecraft. Crushing atmospheric pressures, powerful high-altitude winds amid caustic clouds of sulfuric acid, and temperatures that can soar above 880ºF (475ºC) make the next planet in a no-man’s-land for robotic spacecraft. But those challenges didn’t stop the Soviet space program from successfully putting several…
Three Worlds, One Shot: a February 2015 Conjunction Event
Did you have clear skies last night? If so, you may have been able to catch the sight above: a conjunction of the crescent Moon and the planets Venus and Mars in the western sky! I captured the photo above with a Nikon D7000 and a Sigma 150-500mm lens. Venus is the brighter object at…
Lights in the Dark 