14 DAY TRIAL // The ESA's probe has taken the first pictures ever of Venus' South Pole. Scientists are especially intrigued by a vortex almost directly over the South Pole that corresponds to a similar structure known to exist over the planet's North Pole. These pictures were taken from a distance of more than 200.000 km and are low-quality. But, they are, nevertheless, interesting.
The left half of the first picture is a daylight picture of the South Pole and it shows sunlight reflected from the tops of clouds at around 65 km above the planet's surface.
The right half is a night picture taken in infrared light. The darker regions correspond to thicker cloud cover, while the brighter regions correspond to thinner cloud cover, allowing hot thermal radiation from lower down to be imaged. In this infrared picture, the dynamic, spiral clouds in the lower atmosphere (at around 55 km altitude) can be seen.
The second picture was taken with ultraviolet light. This isn't a very good picture, the size of each pixel corresponding to150 km.
"Just one day after arrival, we are already experiencing the hot, dynamic environment of Venus," said Dr Hakan Svedhem, Venus Express project scientist. "We will see much more detail at an unprecedented level, as we get over 100 times better resolution as we get closer to Venus, and we expect to see these spiral structures evolve very quickly."
The probe will also have the opportunity to take pictures of Venus at "apocentre", the moment when the full disc of Venus will be fully visible. The scientists have also tested the other instruments on board and they all work perfectly.
Photo Credit: (1) ESA/CNR-IASF, Rome, Italy, and Observatoire de Paris, France; (2) ESA/MPS, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany
