A NASA space probe has unexpectedly glimpsed the hidden surface of Venus, discovering geological features such as highlands, plateaus, and plains! Read more: 📷: NASA/APL/NRL/Magellan Team/JPL/USGS
"The images and video just blew me away,"WISPR is optimized for visible light; that is, it takes images in wavelengths that the human eye can see. But it turned out that the instrument can also see a little bit further, into the near-infrared part of the spectrum invisible to human eyes. Infrared and near-infrared are the wavelengths of thermal energy; in other words, heat.
"It's so hot that the rocky surface of Venus is visibly glowing, like a piece of iron pulled from a forge,"Other technologies, such as radar imaging conducted by the Magellan probe in the 1990s, and infrared imaging conducted by the current JAXA Akatsuki probe, have given us a pretty good map of Venus' surface geology. WISPR's contribution, the researchers say, brings our understanding right to the very edge of the visible spectrum.
Although the images haven't revealed anything new in terms of topography, the data can still help us better understand Venus. Because different minerals conduct and release heat differently, the emissions can be used to try to reconstruct the planet's surface mineralogy.This, in turn, can help us understand its history. We know, for example, that Venus has been highly volcanically active in the past.
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