Science & Exploration

How windy is it on Venus? Venus Express answers

18/09/2008 11566 views 12 likes

ESA / Science & Exploration / Space Science / Venus Express

It is well known that winds on Venus are extremely fast and powerful. Now, ESA’s Venus Express has, for the first time, put together a 3-D picture of the venusian winds for an entire planetary hemisphere.

The most powerful atmospheric investigator ever sent to Venus, Venus Express has an advantageous orbit around the planet and a unique set of instruments. The spacecraft has the ability to peer through Venus’s thick atmospheric layers and obtain a truly global picture.

The spacecraft has continuously monitored the planet since observations began in 2006, and scientists now have enough data to start building a complete picture of the planet’s atmospheric phenomena.

The Venus Express Visual and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer, VIRTIS, has been studying the thick blanket of clouds that surround Venus, gathering data on the winds. The area studied spans altitudes of 45 to 70 km above the surface and covers the entire southern hemisphere, up to the equator. It is above the southern hemisphere that Venus Express reaches its highest point in orbit (about 66 000 km), allowing the instruments to obtain a global view.

Agustin Sánchez-Lavega, from the Universidad del País Vasco in Bilbao, Spain, led the research on 3-D wind mapping with data from the first year of VIRTIS observations. “We focused on the clouds and their movement. Tracking them for long periods of time gives us a precise idea of the speed of the winds that make the clouds move and of the variation in the winds,” he said.

Tracking the clouds at different altitudes is possible only if the instrument is able to look through the curtain of clouds. “VIRTIS operates at different wavelengths, each of which penetrates the cloud layer to a different altitude,” added Ricardo Hueso, also from the Universidad del País Vasco, co-author of the results. “We studied three atmospheric layers and followed the movement of hundreds of clouds in each. This has never been done before at such large temporal and spatial scales, and with multi-wavelength coverage.”

We studied three atmospheric layers and followed the movement of hundreds of clouds in each. This has never done before at such large temporal, and spatial scales, and with multi-wavelength coverage.

In total, the team tracked 625 clouds at about 66 km altitude, 662 at around 61 km altitude, and 932 at about 45-47 km altitude, on the day and night sides of the planet. The individual cloud layers were imaged over several months for about 1-2 hours each time.

“We have learnt that between the equator and 50-55˚ latitude south, the speed of the winds varies a lot, from about 370 km/h at a height of 66 km down to about 210 km/h at 45-47 km”, said Sánchez-Lavega.

“At latitudes higher than 65˚, the situation changes dramatically - the huge hurricane-like vortex structure present over the poles takes over. All cloud levels are pushed on average by winds of the same speed, independently of the height, and their speed drops to almost zero at the centre of the vortex.”

Sánchez-Lavega and colleagues observed that the speed of the zonal winds (which blow parallel to the lines of latitude) strongly depend on the local time. The difference in the Sun's heat reaching Venus in the mornings and in the evenings - called the solar tide effect - influences the atmospheric dynamics greatly, making winds blow more strongly in the evenings.

On average, the winds regain their original speeds every five days, but the mechanism that produces this periodicity needs further investigation. “VIRTIS is continuing its observations, and over the next few years we expect to understand more precisely how stable or variable the venusian winds at the upper and lower cloud layers are,” concluded Giuseppe Piccioni, from the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Rome, Italy, co-Principal Investigator for the VIRTIS instrument.

Notes for editors:

The results appear in the 10 July issue of the Geophysical Research Letters journal, in the article ‘Variable winds on Venus mapped in three dimensions’, by A. Sánchez-Lavega, R.Hueso, J.Peralta, S.Pérez-Hoyos (Universidad del País Vasco in Bilbao, Spain), G.Piccioni (Ist. Nazionale di Astrofisica and Ist. Di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Rome, Italy), P.Drossart and S.Erard (Observatoire de Paris/LESIA, France), C.F.Wilson and F.W.Taylor (University of Oxford, UK), K.H.Baines (NASA/JPL, Pasadena, CA, USA), D.Luz (Observatoire de Paris/LESIA, France, and Observatório Astronómico de Lisboa, Portugal), S.Lebonnois (CNRS/UPMC, Paris, France).