Visiting Venus with Venus Express

Written by Hemal S. Shah

From the ancient times Venus has always remained the most beautiful sight of the night sky. Its fabulous glare outshines every other heavenly object in the night sky accept the Moon. After the Sun and the Moon, Venus is the third brightest object in our sky. The surface temperature on Venus is highest when compared with other planets of the solar system. The temperature is even higher than Mercury, although Mercury is nearest to the Sun!

Venus atmosphere is extremely dense. It contains thick layer of clouds, as much thick as 65 kilometers. So walking on the surface of Venus would be like walking under 3,000 feet of water here on Earth. Any living being would be crushed. The dense atmosphere of Venus reflects 80% of the sunlight that it receives. This is the reason why Venus shines so brightly. Even after reflecting most of the light, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps the heat very efficiently and raises the temperature to as high as 464 degree Celsius. It is known as Green House Effect.

Venus is almost as big as Earth and due to this it is said that Earth-Venus are twin sisters. Apart from the size, rest everything is drastically different between the Earth and the Venus. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 108 million kilometers (10.8 crores).

We have very less information about the surface or the lower atmosphere of Venus. Even the most powerful telescopes cannot penetrate through the dense atmosphere and that is why we do not know much about it.

Up to now only three missions have been dedicated to studying the heavily clouded planet. As a result in order to know more, European Space Agency sent Venus Express onto a 162-day journey to reach the second planet from the Sun. The spacecraft was launched on 8^th November 2005 and within 4 hours it set itself into a Venus-bound course and later unfurled its solar array.

Venus Express’ primary goal is to explore close at the Venusian atmosphere, team members are hopeful the spacecraft’s instruments may find hinds of active volcanoes and other features on the planet’s surface.

The ESA officials expect Venus Express to enter orbit around its target planet Venus on April 11 next year. On nearing the planet, probe will make adjustments in its orbit while going around the planet and by about May 7 the probe will reach its final flight configuration.

It is expected that the Venus Express probe will work in good condition for at least 15 months studying the Venusian atmosphere. It might be interesting to know for readers that one Venus day is equal to 243 Earth days. Venus spins very slowly on its axis. Hence the period of 15 months is equal to just two Venus days.

Our the course of the mission the probe will bounce radio waves off the planet’s surface, snap pictures of its swirling atmosphere, take the temperature of the clouds, and search for hints of a magnetic field. All this data will help scientists better understand a planet that from the outside resembles an early Earth and perhaps reveal clues of the existence of life.