Scientists claim to have finally found an answer to the question of how long a "day" on Venus is. The response is that it is constantly evolving, often by as much as 20 minutes!
We knew Venus had a long day ahead of her. NASA said a day on Venus is roughly 243 Earth days, based on a single rotation of the planet on its axis.
The length of a Venus-day does not remain constant, which is novel. When the planet's dense atmosphere interacts with its topography or surface features, the planet's rotation periodically speeds up and slows down by a sum measured in minutes on Earthly clocks.
A group of UCLA scientists published their findings in the journal Nature Astronomy in a paper titled "Spin state and moment of inertia of Venus." The team was headed by Jean-Luc Margot, a UCLA professor of Earth and planetary sciences and astrophysics. Researchers from Cornell University, NASA's National Radio Astronomy Observatory's (NRAO) Green Bank Observatory joined him.
"Venus is our sister planet, and yet these fundamental properties have remained unknown," said Jean-Luc Margot, a UCLA professor of Earth, planetary and space sciences who led the research, in a statement.
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iNews18 said Venus and Earth are considered siblings due to their identical sizes, compositions, masses, and densities. Regardless, the divergent evolutionary paths they have taken have resulted in vastly different outcomes. Venus has a super-dense atmosphere that is poisonous and hot enough to melt lead. In contrast, Earth has an atmosphere that can sustain temperatures conducive to life.
Scientists need to know the basics, such as how many hours are in a Venusian day, to explain why and how our two planets have such divergent histories. Universe Today said data can be used to learn about a planet's spin, direction, internal structure, and mass distribution. Having accurate measurements for these characteristics can help scientists learn more about the planet's origin and volcanic past and how its surface has changed over time.
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Margot and his colleagues used the 70-meter (230-foot) radio antenna at NASA's Deep Space Network's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in the Mojave Desert to get precise figures on Venus' rotation.
Between 2006 and 2020, the team took 21 different measurements of Venus's surface by bouncing radio signals off the planet's surface and receiving them at Goldstone and Green Bank.
According to Margot, the procedure is analogous to shining a light (the radio dish) on millions of tiny reflectors (the planet's landscape) and measuring the reflections to determine how quickly it moves.
Because of the complicated way Venus reflects radio signals, they brighten and dim erratically before reaching Earth. The return signal is intercepted first by the Goldstone antenna, followed by the Green Bank antenna about 20 seconds later. The precise timing of the delay helps scientists to determine how fast Venus is rotating. At the same time, the time window in which the echoes are most similar allows them to determine the planet's axial tilt.
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The researchers believe per Digital Trends that this difference is caused by Venus' odd, thick atmosphere. Its atmosphere rotates much faster than the Earth, which could cause the rotation to be affected by momentum.
The team also discovered that Venus's core is about 2,200 miles long and tilted by 2.6392 degrees, making it close in scale to Earth's core. The researchers made these observations by sending radio waves to the world and waiting for when the waves echoed back, allowing telescopes on Earth to track the echo.
"We use Venus as a giant disco ball," said Margot per Daily Sabah. "We illuminated Venus with a giant flashlight, the radar at Goldstone, and observed the reflections as they swept over the surface of the Earth," she added.
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