Astro Blog

By Davide Sulcanese ,  Giuseppe Mitri  &  Marco Mastrogiuseppe , Nature Astronomy.  Abstract: The surface of Venus has undergone substantial alterations due to volcanic activity throughout its geological history, and some volcanic features suggest that this activity persisted until as recently as 2.5 million years ago. Recent evidence of changes in the surface morphology of a volcanic vent has been interpreted as a potential indication of ongoing volcanic activity. To investigate more widespread alterations that have occurred over time in the planet’s surface morphology, we compared radar images of the same regions observed from 1990 to 1992 with the Magellan spacecraft. We found ...evidence of new lava flows related to volcanic activities that took place during the Magellan spacecraft’s mapping mission with its synthetic-aperture radar. This study provides further evidence in support of a currently geologically active Venus.  Full article at https://www.nat...

By JONATHAN O’CALLAGHAN , Science.  Excerpt: With surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead, Venus today is a veritable hellhole, despite being similar in size to Earth and orbiting in the habitable zone of the Sun. Yet studies suggest the planet may have once hosted oceans and even conditions suitable for life. Explaining how all that water disappeared has been a problem. A study  published today  in Nature offers a solution, identifying a new water-loss mechanism operating high in Venus’s atmosphere that could have doubled the rate of water loss. Speedier drying could have allowed oceans to exist until later in Venus’s history—implying the planet might have been habitable for longer. ...At 96% carbon dioxide, its atmosphere traps so much heat that surface temperatures reach more than 450°C. Yet spacecraft and telescopes have seen faint hints of water vapor in the atmosphere, and in the late 1970s, NASA’s Pioneer Venus orbiter detected a sign of long-vanishe...

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/spot-venuss-creeping-cusps-at-solar-conjunction By Bob King, Sky & Telescope.  Excerpt: With Venus approaching inferior conjunction in August, here’s a foolproof way to follow its thinning crescent as the planet transitions from Evening Star to Morning Star. ...Venus currently shines about 25° east of the Sun and sets about 45 minutes after sundown. On August 13th the two bodies will be in conjunction and rise and set together. For about a week before and after that date, Venus will be difficult-to-impossible to see with the naked eye because of interference from solar glare but remain visible in a telescope if you know exactly where to look. The orbit of Venus is tipped 3.4° relative to the plane of the ecliptic [Earth's orbit plane]. At inferior conjunction, when the two planets are closest, Venus can pass up to 8.4° north or south of the Sun. If Venus lies at or close to either one of its  nodes  — the two points where it ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/active-volcano-shows-venus-living-planet By Paul Voosen, Science.  Excerpt: Choked by a smog of sulfuric acid and scorched by temperatures hot enough to melt lead, the surface of Venus is sure to be lifeless. For decades, researchers also thought the planet itself was dead, capped by a thick, stagnant lid of crust and unaltered by active rifts or volcanoes. But hints of volcanism have mounted recently, and now comes the best one yet: direct evidence for an eruption. Geologically, at least, Venus is alive. The discovery comes from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, which orbited Venus some 30 years ago and used radar to peer through the thick clouds. Images made 8 months apart show a volcano’s circular mouth, or caldera, growing dramatically in a sudden collapse. On Earth, such collapses occur when magma that had supported the caldera vents or drains away, as happened during a 2018 eruption at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. ...The discovery, publishe...

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/space-missions-to-watch-in-2023/ By Sky & Telescope.  Excerpts: ...SpaceX’s Starship ...Axiom Space’s AX2 ... to the International Space Station ...ESA’s  Euclid  space telescope ...an infrared instrument, aimed at studying dark matter and dark energy ...Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) ...X-ray Polarimeter Satellite, ...and the Aditya L1 solar mission, headed to the Earth-Sun L 1  point. ...China’s  Xuntian Space Telescope , a sky survey telescope ...China also plans to launch two X-ray telescopes in 2023 ...The Moon will be bustling in 2023. Three missions [to the Moon] are at least partially NASA-funded through its  Commercial Lunar Payload Services . ...The  Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment  (PRIME 1) is set to launch in June, carrying with it The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain. The TRIDENT drill will delve three feet deep to bring lunar regolith up to th...

https://eos.org/articles/fifteen-years-of-radar-reveal-venuss-most-basic-facts Source: By  Kimberly M. S. Cartier , Eos/AGU .  Excerpt: Venus’s heavy atmosphere tugs the planet’s surface enough to change the length of its day by up to 21 minutes [per day]. ...In a recent paper in  Nature Astronomy , astronomers used 15 years of radar measurements to reveal a few of these fundamental properties of our closest planetary neighbor that have long remained elusive. ...The 70-meter radio antenna at the  Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex  in California served as the flashlight, ...The researchers carefully measured the timing of the returned waves with two radio telescopes: Goldstone in California and the  Green Bank Telescope  in West Virginia. ...they found that Venus’s spin axis is tilted 2.6392° from its orbital plane and that tilt precesses once every 29,000 Earth years, 3,000 years longer than Earth’s precession. These measurements are 5–15 tim...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/14/venus-life-evidence/ Source:  By Marisa Iati and Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post.  Excerpt: An international team of astronomers has detected a rare molecule in the atmosphere of Venus that could be produced by living organisms, according to   a study   published Monday. The discovery instantly puts the brightest planet in the night sky back into the conversation about where to search for extraterrestrial life. The researchers made clear this is not a direct detection of life on Venus. But the astronomical observations confirmed the highly intriguing presence of   the chemical phosphine   near the top of the acidic clouds that blanket the planet. Phosphine is a simple molecule produced on Earth by bacteria and through industrial processes. As a result, it is on the list of molecules — oxygen being another — considered by scientists to be potential “biosignatures” of life on Earth-sized planets whose...

Source:   By Shannon Hall, Scientific American Excerpt: Venus is—without a doubt—Earth’s toxic sibling. Although both worlds are similar in size and density, our planetary neighbor has temperatures so high they can melt lead, winds that whip around it some 60 times faster than the planet itself rotates and an atmosphere that slams down with more than 90 times the pressure found on Earth’s atmosphere. But there have been a few tantalizing hints that billions of years ago Venus might have been more akin to Earth’s twin. ...But a few billion years ago a slightly fainter sun might have allowed for a relatively cool Venus, one where liquid water could have pooled in vast oceans that were friendly to life. A new study recently accepted in Geophysical Research Letters suggests that not only was Venus habitable in the distant past, it could have remained habitable for billions of years. Michael Way from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and his colleagues applied the fir...

Source:   NASA RELEASE: M10 - 081 Excerpt: For the first time, scientists have detected clear signs of recent lava flows on the surface of Venus. The observations reveal that volcanoes on Venus appeared to erupt between a few hundred years to 2.5 million years ago. This suggests the planet may still be geologically active, making Venus one of the few worlds in our solar system that has been volcanically active within the last 3 million years. The evidence comes from the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission, which has been in orbit around the planet since April 2006….See also  European Space Agency News Item . http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/apr/HQ_10-081_Venus_Volcanoes.html