Karen C. Fox, NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center

Underscoring the vast differences between Earth and its neighbor Venus, new research shows a glimpse of giant holes in the electrically charged layer of the Venusian atmosphere, called the ionosphere. The observations point to a more complicated magnetic environment than previously thought which in turn helps us better understand this neighboring, rocky planet.

Planet Venus, with its thick atmosphere made of carbon dioxide, its parched surface, and pressures so high that landers are crushed within a few hours, offers scientists a chance to study a planet very foreign to our own. These mysterious holes provide additional clues to understanding Venuss atmosphere, how the planet interacts with the constant onslaught of solar wind from the sun, and perhaps even whats lurking deep in its core.

[ Watch the Video: The Mysterious Holes In The Atmosphere On Venus ]

This work all started with a mystery from 1978, said Glyn Collinson, a space scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who is first author of a paper on this work in the Journal of Geophysical Research. When Pioneer Venus Orbiter moved into orbit around Venus, it noticed something very, very weird a hole in the planets ionosphere. It was a region where the density just dropped out, and no one has seen another one of these things for 30 years.

Until now.

Collinson set out to search for signatures of these holes in data from the European Space Agencys Venus Express. Venus Express, launched in 2006, is currently in a 24-hour orbit around the poles of Venus. This orbit places it in much higher altitudes than that of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter, so Collinson wasnt sure whether hed spot any markers of these mysterious holes. But even at those heights the same holes were spotted, thus showing that the holes extended much further into the atmosphere than had been previously known.

The observations also suggested the holes are more common than realized. Pioneer Venus Orbiter only saw the holes at a time of great solar activity, known as solar maximum. The Venus Express data, however, shows the holes can form during solar minimum as well.

Interpreting what is happening in Venuss ionosphere requires understanding how Venus interacts with its environment in space. This environment is dominated by a stream of electrons and protons a charged, heated gas called plasma which zoom out from the sun. As this solar wind travels it carries along embedded magnetic fields, which can affect charged particles and other magnetic fields they encounter along the way. Earth is largely protected from this radiation by its own strong magnetic field, but Venus has no such protection.

What Venus does have, however, is an ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere filled with charged particles. The Venusian ionosphere is bombarded on the sun-side of the planet by the solar wind. Consequently, the ionosphere, like air flowing past a golf ball in flight, is shaped to be a thin boundary in front of the planet and to extend into a long comet-like tail behind. As the solar wind plows into the ionosphere, it piles up like a big plasma traffic jam, creating a thin magnetosphere around Venus a much smaller magnetic environment than the one around Earth.

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NASA Research Helps Unravel Mysteries Of The Venusian Atmosphere