November 8, 2010 - Venus Vortex

Published in cooperation with The Planetary Society

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The Week in Space

November 8-14, 2010

Venus Vortex With only a brisk three years elapsing between approval and launch, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express mission earned its name. Launched five years ago this week, the ESA’s first mission to Venus has been uncovering the atmospheric secrets of this perpetually cloud-shrouded planet. In both of these composite images, blue represents ultraviolet images of the day-side cloud top layer at an altitude of about thirty-nine miles, and red represents infrared images of the lower layers of the cloud deck surrounding the planet at an altitude of about twenty-seven miles. The central panel of the bottom image, centered on the southern hemisphere, shows the unique double vortex at the south pole of Venus, at an altitude of about thirty-six miles, surrounded by a collar of "cold" air.

Image credit: Top: ESA / VIRTIS and VMC teams. Bottom: ESA / VIRTIS-VenusX IASF-INAF, Observatoire de Paris (R.Hueso, Univ. Bilbao)