Flashes of light in Venusian atmosphere may be meteors, not lightning

A staff of planetary scientists at Arizona State College has discovered proof that the multitude of vibrant flashes in Venus’ ambiance could also be resulting from meteors passing via, not lightning strikes. Of their paper printed in Journal of Geophysical Analysis: Planets, the group describes their examine of the flashes of sunshine and what they discovered about them.

Scientists learning Venus have famous periodic flashes of sunshine in its atmosphere for a few years. For many of that point the flashes have been attributed to lightning flashing via the planet’s ambiance. Probes despatched to the planet have carried out little to substantiate the origin of the flashes—bursts of electromagnetic static have been recorded, which have been likened to the kind heard throughout thunderstorms on Earth, suggesting lightning as a probable supply.

However there has additionally been a sticking level—recorded bursts of static and pictures of a light-weight flashing via the ambiance have by no means been noticed occurring on the identical time. Additionally, there’s little proof exhibiting that Venus’ ambiance is able to producing lightning. Such points led the researchers on this new effort to think about one other supply—meteors.

To seek out out if meteors is likely to be inflicting the flashes, the analysis staff performed two surveys of the flashing lights—one from information offered by the Mount Bigelow telescope in Arizona, the opposite from information collected by the Japanese Akatsuki orbiter.

The analysis staff discovered that there have been between 10,000 and 100,000 such flashes in any given yr—numbers that may appear excessive for meteor strikes. However the researchers word that meteors lighting up the Venusian sky can be seen extra usually than is the case on Earth resulting from variations within the ambiance and Venus’ tighter orbit across the sun—meteors would journey extra shortly via its ambiance, resulting in brighter flashes.

In evaluating the variety of flashes recorded in Venus’ ambiance with the variety of doable meteor strikes, the staff discovered them to be shut sufficient to counsel that they could possibly be associated. Extra analysis is required, but when the preliminary findings turn into right, space companies will breathe a sigh of aid—sending a probe via clouds laden with lightning strikes is way tougher than one the place the skies are often lit up by meteors.

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