ESA Science & Technology - News Archive
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Scientists have used ESA's Venus Express to characterise the wind and upper cloud patterns on the night side of Venus for the first time–with surprising results.
Published: 14 September 2017
Using observations from ESA's Venus Express satellite, scientists have shown for the first time how weather patterns seen in Venus' thick cloud layers are directly linked to the topography of the surface below. Rather than acting as a barrier to our observations, Venus' clouds may offer insight into what lies beneath.
Published: 18 July 2016
ESA's Venus Express may have helped to explain the puzzling lack of water on Venus. The planet has a surprisingly strong electric field – the first time this has been measured at any planet – that is sufficient to deplete its upper atmosphere of oxygen, one of the components of water.
Published: 20 June 2016
Some of the final results sent back by ESA's Venus Express before it plummeted down through the planet's atmosphere have revealed it to be rippling with atmospheric waves – and, at an average temperature of -157°C, colder than anywhere on Earth.
Published: 19 April 2016
ESA's Venus Express has found the best evidence yet for active volcanism on Earth's neighbour planet.
Published: 18 June 2015
ESA's Venus Express has ended its eight-year mission after far exceeding its planned life. The spacecraft exhausted its propellant during a series of thruster burns to raise its orbit following the low-altitude aerobraking earlier this year.
Published: 16 December 2014
As the end of its eight-year adventure at Venus edges ever closer, ESA scientists have been taking a calculated risk with the Venus Express spacecraft in order to carry out unique observations of the planet's rarefied outer atmosphere. First results from this aerobraking campaign were reported today at the 2014 Division for Planetary Science...
Published: 11 November 2014
ESA's Venus Express spacecraft has climbed to a new orbit following its daring aerobraking experiment, and will now resume observations of this fascinating planet for at least a few more months.
Published: 28 July 2014
After a month surfing in and out of the atmosphere of Venus down to just 130 km from the planet's surface, ESA's Venus Express is about to embark on a 15 day climb up to the lofty heights of 460 km.
Published: 11 July 2014
After eight years in orbit, ESA's Venus Express has completed routine science observations and is preparing for a daring plunge into the planet's hostile atmosphere.
Published: 16 May 2014
The planet Venus is blanketed by high-level clouds. At visible wavelengths, individual cloud features are difficult to see, but observations made by instruments on ESA's Venus Express orbiter have revealed many small-scale wave trains. Analysis shows that the waves are mostly found at high northern latitudes, particularly above Ishtar Terra, a...
Published: 13 January 2014
As the closest planet to Earth, Venus is a relatively easy object to observe. However, many mysteries remain, not least the super-rotation of Venus' atmosphere, which enables high altitude winds to circle the planet in only four days. Now images of cloud features sent back by ESA's Venus Express orbiter have revealed that these remarkably rapid...
Published: 18 June 2013
Measurements obtained with ESA's Venus Express spacecraft have shed new light on the interaction between the solar wind and the second planet from the Sun.
Published: 29 January 2013
For decades, planetary scientists have debated whether Venus possesses active volcanoes. The latest twist to the tale is provided by data sent back from Venus Express, revealing unexplained major changes in the amount of sulphur dioxide gas above the planet's dense cloud layer.
Published: 2 December 2012
Venus Express has spied a surprisingly cold region high in the planet's atmosphere that may be frigid enough for carbon dioxide to freeze out as ice or snow.
Published: 1 October 2012
Scientists and amateur astronomers around the world are preparing to observe the rare occurrence of Venus crossing the face of the Sun on 5-6 June, an event that will not be seen again for over a hundred years.
Published: 24 May 2012
Using near-infrared observations collected by the Venus Monitoring Camera, scientists have found evidence that the planet's rugged highlands are scattered with geochemically more evolved rocks, rather than the basaltic rocks of the volcanic plains.
Published: 16 May 2012
Despite the absence of a large magnetosphere, the near-Venus environment exhibits a number of similarities with planets such as Earth. The latest, surprising, example is the evidence for magnetic reconnection in Venus' induced magnetotail.
Published: 5 April 2012
ESA's Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that our cloud-covered neighbour spins a little slower than previously measured. Peering through the dense atmosphere in the infrared, the orbiter found surface features were not quite where they should be.
Published: 10 February 2012
Venus Express' discovery of a tenuous layer of ozone in the atmosphere of Venus poses new challenges to the chemical characterisation of planetary atmospheres.
Published: 6 October 2011
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