Image captured by NASA ‘s Parker Solar Probe during the Venus flight in July 2020.
NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Naval Research Laboratory / Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher
NASA’s flyby Venus with Parker Solar Probe has seen one of the most amazing sights of our sister planet recently. The flyby – made last summer to assist the researcher in making closer orbits around the Sun – captured thermal images of the Venus plateaus.
During Venus’ third gravity-assisted operation at the mission on July 11, 2020, the Imager captured a wide range for the Parker Solar Probe, or WISPR, a stunning image of the planet’s nightmare from 7,693 miles away, NASA said.
“It is very interesting that the near-Infrared (NIR) capabilities of the instrument were not underestimated, allowing unexpected surface features to be discovered,” said Stephen Kane, a planetary astronomer at the University of California, Riverside, which is not part of the probe team. , I told.
For example, the darkest part of the planet is not a cloud structure, but it is the continental continent of Aphrodite Terra, says Kane. This shows the sensitivity of the planet’s surface temperature to an increase, he says.
In fact, NASA says the Aphrodite Terra feature appears dark due to the lower temperature, around 85 degrees Fahrenheit colder than it is around.
Venus ’thick cloud cover has long undergone both ground-based and space-based efforts to image this planet of hell. In addition to NASA’s 1998 radar mapping mission of NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, almost everything we know about its surface came from Soviet-era Venera landers and through orbital and flybys missions.
The probe will orbit Venus seven times in total over its seven-year mission, using the planet’s gravity to orbit the spacecraft’s orbit, NASA says. This will allow the researcher to get closer and closer to the Sun to study the dynamics of the sun and the solar wind.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe had a close-up view of Venus as it flew over the planet in July 2020. … [+]
NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Naval Research Laboratory / Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher
“WISPR is specifically designed for visible light testing; we were expecting to see clouds, but the camera showed through to the surface, ”Angelos Vourlidas, WISPR project scientist from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, said in a statement.
WISPR is designed to take images of the solar corona and inner heliosphere in visible light, as well as images of the solar wind and its structures as they approach and fly with the vessel- space, says NASA.
At Venus, the camera found a bright edge around the planet’s potentially night-time edge – light emitted by high oxygen atoms in the atmosphere that enters molecules at night, emitting note the space agency.
If WISPR can pick up near – infrared light waves, the unexpected potential would provide new opportunities to study dust around the Sun and in the indoor solar system, NASA says.
NASA hopes that Parker ‘s recent confirmatory study on February 20, 2021 will provide the WISPR team with a similar view of the Venusian night team. But that data is not expected to be downloaded back to Earth until the end of April.
“Those involved thought the camera was only optical, but it turns out sensitivity extends to the NIR,” Kane said. “I hope this will help inspire more missions and images of the Venusian surface. ”
If you look at the night side of Venus in the near infrared, you get a low temperature map of the surface, says Kane.