Explanation:
What's happening over the South Pole of Venus?
To find out, scientists have been studying images taken by the
robotic Venus Express spacecraft when it passes over the
lower spin axis of Earth's overheated twin.
Surprisingly, recent images from
Venus Express
do not confirm previous sightings of a double storm system there, but rather found a single unusual swirling cloud vortex.
In the above recently released image sequence taken in infrared light and digitally compressed, darker areas correspond to higher temperatures and hence lower regions of Venus' atmosphere.
Also illuminating are
recently released
movies, which show similarities between
Venus' southern vortex
and the vortex that swirls over the
South Pole of Saturn.
Understanding the peculiar dynamics of why, at times, two eddies appear, while at other times a single peculiar eddy appears, may give insight into how
hurricanes evolve on Earth, and remain a topic of research for some time.
In three months, the European
Venus Express spacecraft will be joined around Venus by the Japanese
Akatsuki satellite.
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