Nighttime Side of Venus Revealed
During a recent flyby of Venus, the Parker Solar Probe captured visible light and near infrared images of the nightside of our sister planet, revealing various landforms.
Earlier this week, we interviewed Dr. Adam Szabo, Mission Scientist for the Parker Solar Probe. Now, we were talking to him because Parker is coming up on its next perihelion, or closest approach to the Sun, on February 25, but we apparently jumped the gun as they released new images of Venus just this week.
That’s right. Images of Venus.
To boost its speed and manage its trajectory, the Parker Solar Probe performs close flybys of Venus, and while there, takes as much data as possible. The latest images of Venus were taken with the Wide-Field Imager, also known as WISPR, and they show all of the nightside of Venus. These images are mostly in visible light but lean into the near-infrared, which is amazing in and of itself. Venus is difficult to image because of the heavy cloud cover and high temperatures. It’s especially difficult to see any detail in visible light, and that’s why the nightside was chosen for this observation.
The images actually captured details of the surface. There is a faint glow in which can be seen continental…
