An Epic, Planet-Scale Wave Has Been Hiding in The Toxic Clouds of Venus For Decades

[Nevilledog]

https://www.sciencealert.com/an-epic-planet-scale-wave-has-been-hiding-in-the-toxic-clouds-of-venus-for-decades

Deep in the thick, poisonous clouds wrapped around Venus, the atmosphere is behaving very oddly. A giant, previously unknown planet-scale wall of cloud travels westward around the planet every 4.9 days - and apparently has been doing so since at least 1983.

It can extend up to 7,500 kilometres (4,660 miles) long, stretching across the equator to both the north and south mid latitudes, at relatively low altitudes between 47.5 and 56.5 kilometres. It's a phenomenon that's never been seen anywhere else in the Solar System.

"If this happened on Earth, this would be a frontal surface at the scale of the planet," said astrophysicist Pedro Machado of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal.

"That's incredible."

Venus is an extreme sort of place for a rocky habitable zone planet. It's completely shrouded in a thick atmosphere made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide that rotates 60 times faster than the planet itself, producing insane winds.

*snip*

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Venus's rotation is already screwy

Relative to the stars, its rotation is very slow (about walking pace, at the equator, compared to about 1,000 mph on Earth), and backwards. So, relative to the stars, one Venusian day lasts 243 Earth days - longer than a Venusian year of 225 Earth days. Since they're in different directions, the solar day - the time between the Sun being at its highest point each day - on Venus lasts 117 Earth days, with the sun rising in the west and setting in the east.

So this wave coming through every 5 (Earth) days is far more frequent than night and day.

[Hortensis]

2. No evening cool-off for relaxing on the porch, huh?

Just constant sun heating the poisonous gasses to several hundreds degrees, then months of darkness spectacularly showcasing the volcanic eruptions and lava flows, plus insane winds scouring the planet constantly. And of course the mother of all fronts, even by Venus standards, coming through every 4-5 days.

It really sounds like a great place to virtually visit while shut in. If only.