Venus has a thick and poisonous atmosphere that keeps it spinning, according to a new study, which says that without this movement the planet would be constrained by the sun, and if it wasn’t for the fast-moving atmosphere of Venus, it would probably be static, not moving on its axis, and facing One side is always the sun.
According to RT, Venus takes 243 Earth days to rotate, but its atmosphere revolves around the planet every four days, according to a team from the University of California, Riverside.
Extremely fast winds pull the atmosphere along the surface of the planet as it rotates, slowing its rotation while also easing the grip of the sun’s gravity.
The slow rotation has dire consequences for Venus’s hot climate, with temperatures averaging 900 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to melt lead.
The team says this slow rotation means Venus is partially enclosed, but it’s unclear whether this has led to a global warming effect on Earth’s infernal twin.
The UC Riverside team says a planet’s atmosphere, whether in the solar system or an exoplanet, should be considered a prominent feature of its composition.
The gravity of a large object in space can prevent a smaller object from spinning, a phenomenon called tidal locking, and Venus’ atmosphere slows down this lock.
“We think of the atmosphere as a thin, nearly discrete layer on top of a planet that has little interaction with the solid planet,” said Stephen Kane, lead author of the paper. “Venus’s strong atmosphere teaches us that it is a more integrated part of the planet and affects just about everything.” , even how fast the planet is spinning.
Extremely fast winds pull the atmosphere along the surface of the planet as it rotates, slowing its rotation while also easing the grip of the sun’s gravity.
The slow rotation, in turn, has dire consequences for Venus’s hot climate, where temperatures average 900 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to the team, it is unclear whether the partial shutdown of the tides is contributing to a runaway global warming state, a condition that renders the planet uninhabitable as we know it.
Not only is it important to get clarity on this question to understand Venus, it’s also important to study exoplanets that are likely to be targets in future NASA missions, according to the researchers behind the study.
Gaining clarity about the factors that contributed to a runaway global warming on Venus, Earth’s closest neighbor, could help improve models of what might one day happen to Earth’s climate if pollution is left unchecked. The results are published in Nature Astronomy.