London, jan 16 (EFE).- A team of scientists from Japan believe they have detected a wave of gravity in the atmosphere of the planet Venus, as explained in an article published today in “Nature Geoscience”.
The team, led by Makoto Taguchi, of the university of Rikkyo, Tokyo, analysed the information captured by the space probe JAXA Akatsuki, launched in 2010 in order to study the atmosphere of Venus, in whose orbit he was able to take in 2015.
The images received allow us to identify a “huge structure stationary in the fast atmosphere” of the planet whose clouds in the thick atmospheric layer upper occur at a rate of about one hundred meters per second, say scientists.
The unusual formation has the form of an arc and extends about 10,000 kilometers in the upper atmosphere of Venus, at the height of the top of the clouds, and it records a temperature higher than that of the surrounding atmosphere, they add.
The scientists observed that the region of brightest color does not move along with the atmospheric winds that is behind it, but remains stationary over a mountainous region of the planet.
Having examined its evolution during several days, they concluded that the training may be “the result of a gravity wave that would have been generated in the lower atmosphere as it rises above the mountainous topography”.
The gravity waves are essentially pressure waves and temperature in the lower atmosphere, and they get their name from the fact that gravity acts as a restoring force that tries to restore the balance of upward and downward air movement.
The authors warn that it is not yet known whether gravity waves induced by mountains can be easily spread upward toward the cloud tops of Venus.
Note, however, that the findings of their research show that “the dynamic atmospheric conditions of Venus are more complex and deep than previously thought”. EFE
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