The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
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Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
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This image of the near-equatorial region of Venus was acquired on 24 September 2006 by the Ultraviolet, Visible and Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on board ESA’s Venus Express, from a distance of about 37 000 kilometres from the planet’s surface.
The image, taken on the night-side of Venus at a wavelength of 1.7 micron, provides a close-up view of a highly turbulent region, with irregular and warped clouds, which is common at these low latitudes. This is different from what happens at higher latitudes (pole-ward) where clouds are generally streaky and more regularly shaped.
The gray ‘bubble’ slightly below the centre of the image is located at about 27 degrees southern latitude and 7 degrees western longitude, and has a diameter of about 300 kilometres.
The Alpha Regio area is at the bottom left of the image. This area is characterised by a series of troughs, ridges, and faults that are oriented in many directions, with surface features that can be up to 4 kilometres high. It is not yet clear if atmospheric turbulences may be induced by the rough topography below the clouds.
The grey-scale of the images is such that white signifies more transparency, therefore less clouds, while darker or blacker regions represent opacity, or thicker clouds.