NASA shares an official, stunning image of Venus, captured by a spacecraft they sent out to observe the Sun. Recent revelation debunks what was circulating online that claims it had the closest image of the planet.
When flying past Venus in July 2020, Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument, short for Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, detected a bright rim around the edge of the planet that may be nightglow — light emitted by oxygen atoms high in the atmosphere that recombine into molecules in the nightside. The prominent dark feature in the center of the image is Aphrodite Terra, the largest highland region on the Venusian surface. Bright streaks in WISPR, such as the ones seen here, are typically caused by a combination of charged particles — called cosmic rays — sunlight reflected by grains of space dust, and particles of material expelled from the spacecraft’s structures after impact with those dust grains. The number of streaks varies along the orbit or when the spacecraft is traveling at different speeds, and scientists are still in discussion about the specific origins of the streaks here. The dark spot appearing on the lower portion of Venus is an artifact from the WISPR instrument.
According to the space agency, Parker Solar Probe shows that our close neighbor is glowing brilliantly, as seen from the official photos that the engineers took.
NASA launched the car-sized spacecraft in August 2018 as the first special mission to get close to the Sun. The agency hopes the probe could help astronomers understand solar wind and electromagnetic storms that can create havoc on the planet by taking out power grids.
The probe would travel seven times through Venus, using its gravity to get closer to the Sun. If it does, it will show knowledge about certain things just outside of the Sun.
Here's What This Viral Photo Claims
The acquired pictures have recently circulated on Facebook and Twitter. The article had a deceptive caption claiming that the images were "the only clear photo ever taken from the surface of Venus by Soviet spacecraft Venera 13."
Although the photo was taken officially by Venera 13, an American researcher told AFP that he enhanced a monochrome Venus image taken by Venera 13. He said other netizens had colorized the photo afterward.
Venera 13 was a space probe from the Soviet Union that was sent to Venus on October 30, 1981. It was the first one to send back photographs of the surface of Venus in color. On Google, a reverse image search found a monochrome version of the image that was released here.
To create the "perspective image." American researcher Don P. Mitchell said he combined raw image data from the Soviet space probe sent to Venus using image editing tools.
In addition, Mitchell said that the colorized version may have been incorrect, although beautiful and creepy, because it is difficult to tell the color of the sky when the clouds on the earth block out blue light.
However, photographs of the surface of Venus are rare, especially because it is challenging to land a rover in the region and allow it to remain on the ground for more than a few hours at a time. According to Ladbible, the planet had an intensely hot atmosphere.
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Here's What Venus Officially Look Like
According to NASA, Parker Solar Probe took an incredible picture of Venus on one such flyby last Jul. 11, 2020. It helped researchers discover something unexpected about the earth.
When scientists analyzed the shot, taken from 7,700 miles away from the night side of Venus using WISPR, they were shocked to see that Parker Solar Probe had caught more than they thought.
According to CNet, the bright rim along the outside of the earth appears to be what is called the night glow, which exists as the oxygen atoms in the atmosphere recombine and give off light like they do when they are on the night side of the planet.
Angelos Vourlidas, the WISPR project scientist from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a statement that they expected to see clouds. Still, the camera gazed right through to the surface.
Scientists went back to check how vulnerable the system was to infrared radiation. If the equipment is capable of seeing near-infrared wavelengths, as it seems, then it may be much more useful than anticipated, enabling scientists to research dust around the Sun and surrounding solar systems.
While you may not see extra wavelengths your naked eye, the official photos can reflect a whole new way of seeing Venus.
This week, the probe went past Venus again, and researchers are expecting to process the data by the end of April.
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