NASA captures never-before-seen images of the surface of Venus | VIDEO

The Parker Solar Probe POT has taken its first visible-light images of the surface of Venus, usually hidden from view by thick cloud cover.

But in two recent flybys of the planet, Parker used his Wide-Field Imager (WISPR), for the visible spectrum, the kind of light the human eye can see, and extending into the near infrared.

The images reveal a faint surface glow showing distinctive features such as continental regions, plains, and plateaus. A luminescent halo of oxygen can also be seen in the atmosphere surrounding the planet.

These images of the planet, often called Earth’s twin, can help scientists learn more about the geology of Venus’s surface, what minerals might be present there, and the planet’s evolution. Given the similarities between the planets, this information can and the Earth became an oasis.

“Venus is the third brightest thing in the sky, but until recently we didn’t have much information about what the surface looked like because our view is blocked by a thick atmosphere.” Brian Wood, lead author of the new study, a physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, said in a statement.. “Now, we are finally seeing the surface in wavelengths visible for the first time from space.”

The first WISPR images of Venus were taken in July 2020 when Parker embarked on its third flyby, which the spacecraft uses to bring its orbit closer to the Sun. WISPR was designed to see faint features in the solar atmosphere and wind, and some Scientists thought they could use WISPR to image the cloud tops obscuring Venus as Parker passes the planet.

“The objective was to measure the speed of the clouds”, said WISPR project scientist Angelos Vourlidas, a co-author of the new paper and a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

But instead of just seeing clouds, WISPR too. The images were so amazing that scientists turned the cameras back on during the fourth pass in February 2021. During the 2021 flyby, the spacecraft’s orbit aligned perfectly so that WISPR get an image of the night side of Venus in its entirety. “The images and the video left me speechless”, Wood said.

The clouds block out most of the visible light coming from the surface of Venus, but longer visible wavelengths, bordering on near-infrared wavelengths, make it through. On the dayside, this red light is lost amidst the bright sunlight reflecting off the clouds of Venus, but in the dead of night, WISPR cameras were able to capture this faint glow caused by the incredible heat emanating from the surface.

“The surface of Venus, even on the night side, is about 860 degrees,” Wood said. “It’s so hot like a piece of iron taken from a forge.”

As it passed Venus, WISPR captured a range of wavelengths from 470 nanometers to 800 nanometers. Some of that light is near-infrared, wavelengths we can’t see but feel as heat, and some is in the visible range, between 380 nanometers and about 750 nanometers.

In 1975, the Venera 9 lander sent back the first tantalizing glimpses of the surface after landing on Venus. Since then, the surface of Venus has been further revealed with radar and infrared instruments, which can peer through thick clouds using wavelengths of light invisible to the human eye. NASA’s Magellan mission created the first maps in the 1990s using radar, and JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft collected infrared images after reaching orbit around Venus in 2016.

The new Parker images add to these findings by extending the observations to red wavelengths at the limit of what we can see.

The WISPR images show features on the surface of Venus, such as the Aphrodite Terra continental region, the Tellus Regio plateau, and the Aino Planitia plains. Since the higher-altitude regions are about 29 degrees Celsius cooler than lower-lying areas, they appear as dark spots amidst the brighter lowlands. These features can also be seen in earlier radar images, such as those taken by Magellan.

Beyond looking at surface features, the new WISPR images will help scientists better understand the geology and mineral composition of Venus. When heated, materials glow at unique wavelengths. By combining the new images with the old ones, it can help identify what minerals are on the planet’s surface.

Such techniques have previously been used to study the surface of the Moon. Future missions will continue to expand this range of wavelengths, adding to our understanding of habitable planets.

This information could also help scientists understand the evolution of the planet. Even though Venus, Earth, and Mars formed around the same time, they are very different today. Mars’ atmosphere is a fraction of Earth’s, while Venus has a much thicker atmosphere. Scientists suspect that volcanism played a role in creating Venus’ thick atmosphere, but more data is needed to know how. The new images from WISPR could provide clues about how volcanoes may have affected the planet’s atmosphere.

In addition to the surface glow, the new images show a bright ring around the planet’s edge caused by light-emitting oxygen atoms in the atmosphere. This type of light, called airglow, is also present in Earth’s atmosphere, where it is visible from space and sometimes from the ground at night.