1. South polar features on Venus similar to those near the north pole
- Author
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Piccioni, G, Drossart, P., Sanchez Lavega, A., Hueso, R., Taylor, F. W., Wilson, C. F., Grassi, D., Zasova, L., Moriconi, M., Adriani, A., Lebonnois, S., Coradini, A., Bézard, B., Angrilli, Francesco, Arnold, G., Baines, K. H., Bellucci, G., Benkhoff, J., Bibring, J. P., Blanco, A., Blecka, M. I., Carlson, R. W., Di Lellis, A., Encrenaz, T., Erard, S., Fonti, S., Formisano, V., Fouchet, T., Garcia, R., Haus, R., Helbert, J., Ignatiev, N. I., Irwin, P. G. J., Langevin, Y., Lopez Valverde, M. A., Luz, D., Marinangeli, L., Orofino, V., Rodin, A. V., Roos Serote, M. C., Saggin, Bortolino, Stam, D. M., Titov, D., Visconti, G., Zambelli, M., Ammannito, Eleonora, Barbis, Alessandra, Berlin, Rainer, BETTANINI FECIA DI COSSATO, Carlo, Boccaccini, Angelo, Bonnello, Guillaume, Bouye, Marc, Capaccioni, Fabrizio, Cardesin Moinelo, Alejandro, Carraro, Francesco, Cherubini, Giovanni, Cosi, Massimo, Dami, Michele, De Nino, Maurizio, Del Vento, Davide, Di Giampietro, Marco, Donati, Alessandro, Dupuis, Olivier, Espinasse, Sylvie, Fabbri, Anna, Fave, Agnes, Veltroni, Iacopo Ficai, Filacchione, Gianrico, Garceran, Katia, Ghomchi, Yamina, Giustini, Maurizio, Gondet, Brigitte, Hello, Yann, Henry, Florence, Hofer, Stefan, Huntzinger, Gerard, Kachlicki, Juergen, Knoll, René, Driss, Kouach, Mazzoni, Alessandro, Melchiorri, Riccardo, Mondello, Giuseppe, Monti, Francesco, Neumann, Christian, Nuccilli, Fabrizio, Parisot, Jerome, Pasqui, Claudio, Perferi, Stefano, Peter, Gisbert, Piacentino, Alain, Pompei, Carlo, Reess, Jean Michel, Rivet, Jean Pierre, Romano, Antonio, Russ, Natalie, Santoni, Massimo, Scarpelli, Adelmo, Semery, Alain, Soufflot, Alain, Stefanovitch, Douchane, Suetta, Enrico, Tarchi, Fabio, Tonetti, Nazzareno, Tosi, Federico, Ulmer, Bernd, Istituto de Astrofisica Spaziale et Fisica cosmica (IASF), Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique (LESIA), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539) (LMD), Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-École polytechnique (X)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), and Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)
- Subjects
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,Atmospheric circulation ,Venus ,01 natural sciences ,Astrobiology ,Atmosphere ,[SDU.STU.PL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Planetology ,Polar vortex ,Downwelling ,0103 physical sciences ,010303 astronomy & astrophysics ,Physics::Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics ,Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Multidisciplinary ,biology ,Medicine (all) ,Astronomy ,biology.organism_classification ,Vortex ,Dipole ,13. Climate action ,Polar ,Geology - Abstract
Venus has no seasons, slow rotation and a very massive atmosphere, which is mainly carbon dioxide with clouds primarily of sulphuric acid droplets. Infrared observations by previous missions to Venus revealed a bright 'dipole' feature surrounded by a cold 'collar' at its north pole(1-4). The polar dipole is a 'double-eye' feature at the centre of a vast vortex that rotates around the pole, and is possibly associated with rapid downwelling. The polar cold collar is a wide, shallow river of cold air that circulates around the polar vortex. One outstanding question has been whether the global circulation was symmetric, such that a dipole feature existed at the south pole. Here we report observations of Venus' south-polar region, where we have seen clouds with morphology much like those around the north pole, but rotating somewhat faster than the northern dipole. The vortex may extend down to the lower cloud layers that lie at about 50 km height and perhaps deeper. The spectroscopic properties of the clouds around the south pole are compatible with a sulphuric acid composition.
- Published
- 2007