The Space Organization Shared A New Photo That NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Captured Of Venus While The Probe Was Using The Planet’s Gravity
There are many things that freak me out about space. But the thing that scares me the most is just how little we know about it. The space organization shared a new photo that NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured of Venus while the probe was using the planet’s gravity to whip itself toward its final destination: The Sun. The black and white image was taken from 7,693 miles away from Venus. To the the lay person it looks pretty cool: There’s a planet and stars and perhaps some sort of movement taking place. But, honestly, I’ve seen better, especially over these last few weeks. According NASA, though, the image is full of surprises. As Space.com put it, Venus “looks nothing like what scientists expected to see.”
In a statement released this week, NASA scientists explained that the camera on-board the Parker Solar Probe, known as the Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (or WISPR), captured an image of a bright rim around the edge of the planet that may be nightglow and the planet’s Aphrodite Terra, the largest highland region on the Venusian surface, which is known to be about 85 degrees cooler than its surroundings. The is exciting and all, but according to NASA, they were only expecting to see some clouds.
This means that either the WISPR device that we shot up into space doesn’t actually work the way we thought it would. Instead of just capturing visible light, the images suggest that the camera may also be able to pick up near-infrared wavelengths of light, which could allow scientists to conduct further research on dust around the Sun and in the solar system. Or—and this is where I get a little freaked out—it could mean that changes are happening in the normally thick, cloudy Venusian atmosphere that Earthlings were not yet aware of. “Either way,” Angelos Vourlidas, the scientist who helped develop WISPR, said, “some exciting science opportunities await us.”
My thoughts exactly.
The latest photos were from the probe’s July 2020 flyby of Venus. The probe passed the planet again earlier this month, on February 20, and the WISPR team planned to capture more images to draw a conclusion from. Still, it won’t be until the end of April before the images make it back to Earth.
This news was originally published at Chron