the NASA Take the first pictures of the surface of Venus in visible light from space. Usually the planet is covered in a thick layer of clouds.
Unpublished images made it possible to assemble a model of the surface of Venus.
For the first time, distinct bright and dark images could be seen, and the scientists compared these images to topographic maps, created with radar, to see how temperatures change with altitude.
Given that light regions are warmer and darker than cooler regions, that high altitudes tend to be cooler, and lowlands are warmer, they devised a model that allowed them to assess the comfort of Venus.
As a result, it was possible to note, for example, the location of Aphrodite Terra, the largest plateau region on Venus, among other thermal differences.
According to scientists, understanding the composition of the surface can teach us about the evolution of the planet, which is currently uninhabitable, with extreme temperatures, toxic clouds and an overwhelming atmosphere, but may have had a different past.
The Soviet Union’s Venera program captured only the other clear images of the surface of Venus when a rover landed on the planet.
Since then, Venus has only been studied using infrared and radar instruments that can peer through its dense atmosphere.
The new images were obtained thanks to the Parker Solar Probe, which pointed its cameras toward the night side of Venus as it passes through the years 2020 and 2021.
These cameras are known as the Solar Probe’s Wide Field Imaging Generators, or WISPR, and are designed to see faint traces in the solar wind streaming from the sun.
At first, scientists thought that they could only use them to see the clouds of Venus during the spacecraft’s flyby of the planet. Instead, they saw traces of light and dark surfaces through the clouds.
The Parker Solar Probe will once again pass Venus in 2024, when it should get more pictures of the planet.
