Last summer, the Parker Solar Probe flew past Venus on its way to flying closer to the Sun. Surprisingly, one of the spacecraft’s cameras, the Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, or WISPR, captured a stunning image of the planet’s nightmare from 7,693 miles (12380 km) away.
The surprise of the image was that WISPR – a visible light camera – captured the surface of Venus in infrared light.
Mission scientists expected WISPR to capture the thick, carbon dioxide clouds at Venus, which typically obstruct views of the surface. Instead, the camera was able to see through the clouds, revealing the dark color shape of Aphrodite Terra, a high-rise area near the equator. The feature appears dark due to its lower temperature, around 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) colder than its surroundings.
“WISPR is designed and tested for visual lighting ideas,” said Angelos Vourlidas, WISPR project scientist. “We were expecting to see clouds, but the camera was going through to the surface. ”
While Parker Solar Probe’s focus is on the Sun, NASA says Venus plays a critical role in the mission. The spacecraft will orbit Venus seven times in total over its seven-year mission, and use the planet for gravity aids. This will allow the spacecraft to fly closer and closer to the Sun.
The flyby in July 2020 was the third of seven gravity aids.
Credits: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Naval Research Laboratory / Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher
“WISPR effectively captured Venusian surface thermal emissions,” said Brian Wood, a WISPR pathologist and expert at the U.S. marine research laboratory in Washington, DC. Wood added that the image was similar to those taken by the Japanese Akatsuki spacecraft, which is currently studying Venus, and incorporates cameras that can capture light at near-wave waves. infrared.
The bright currents in the image are usually caused by a mixture of cut grains – called cosmic rays – and sunlight reflected by grains of space dust, and fragments of emitted material. from the structures of the spacecraft after being impacted by these dust particles. The number of streaks varies throughout the orbit or when the spacecraft travels at different distances, and scientists are still debating the specific origin of the streaks here.
Here’s a look at a “cleaned up” version by image enthusiast (and former UT writer) Jason Major:
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 the structures as they approach and fly with the vessel. -space. At Venus, the camera found a bright edge around the planet ‘s potential nightmare – light emitted by high oxygen atoms in the atmosphere entering molecules at night.
This amazing sight sent the WISPR team back to the lab to measure the sensitivity of the instrument to infrared light.
If WISPR actually sees in infrared, it could give the mission an unexpected new way to study dust orbiting the sun. To test it, the WISPR team devised a set of Venusian night-like observations during Parker Solar Probe’s latest Venus flyby – which just happened on February 20, 2021. Mission team scientists expect to get that data and processed for analysis by the end of April.
But if the appearance of Aphrodite Terra was a kind of “fluke,” it could mean that WISPR found an unidentified opening in the thick Venusian clouds, providing a large window that showed parts of the planet’s surface. .
“In every way,” said Vourlidas, “some exciting scientific opportunities await us. ”
Source: NASA