“Astronomers Discover Atomic Oxygen in Venus’ Daylight Atmosphere”
It’s official. Astronomers peering at the atmosphere of Venus have directly detected clear signs of atomic oxygen in daylight, hanging about above the planet’s toxic clouds.
Atomic oxygen is known to exist in the planet’s atmosphere, according to theoretical models, and has even been directly detected on Venus’ nightside. However, the dayside detection signifies a new insight into the dynamics of the Venusian atmosphere, and the circulation patterns therein, according to a team led by physicist Heinz-Wilhelm Hübers of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Venus is a world that scientists are eager to study more closely. Similar to Earth in many ways but utterly different in others, Venus is cloaked with thick, choking clouds mostly composed of carbon dioxide, creating a greenhouse environment that leads to average surface temperatures around 464 degrees Celsius (867 Fahrenheit).
These clouds drop acid rain on Venus, and the entire atmosphere rotates around the planet at a tremendous rate. Winds far below Venus’s cloud tops can scream along at around 700 kilometers (more than 400 miles) per hour. On Earth, the highest wind speed ever recorded was a hurricane gust of 407 kilometers (253 miles) per hour.
Studying our neighbor Venus could help us understand why it and Earth ended up so different from one another. Was Venus once on the same path as Earth and took a wrong turn somewhere? Or was it the evil twin from the start?
Understanding the atmosphere of Venus could help us understand the differences between it and Earth. And one of the ways to do that is by following the oxygen.
Atomic oxygen isn’t like the oxygen that you breathe. The latter is molecular oxygen, or O2, consisting of two oxygen atoms bound together. Atomic oxygen consists of single, lone oxygen atoms, and it doesn’t tend to last very long, because it’s highly reactive and easily bonds to other atoms.
Hübers and his team studied data collected by Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) flying high in Earth’s own atmosphere, in the terahertz wavelength range that straddles microwave and far-infrared.
At all 17 locations, the team detected atomic oxygen, peaking in concentration at an altitude of about 100 kilometers (62 miles). This corresponds to an altitude that sits directly between two dominant atmospheric circulation patterns on Venus.
This means, the researchers say, that atomic oxygen represents a heretofore untapped resource to probe this atmospheric transitional zone on Venus.
“Future observations, especially near the antisolar and subsolar points but also at all solar zenith angles, will provide a more detailed picture of this peculiar region and support future space missions to Venus,” the researchers write.
The study has been published in Nature Communications. This new insight into the dynamics of the Venusian atmosphere could be a game-changer for understanding Earth’s neighbor and its differences from our own planet.