PhotoFor a few days, Venus smiled — sideways. When Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft pulled into orbit around Venus in December 2015 and turned on its instruments, it almost immediately discovered a bow-shape feature in the atmosphere stretching 6,000 miles, almost pole to pole — a sideways smile. Scientists working on data from the European Space Agency’s Venus Express reported finding a similar disturbance in the atmosphere. The authors of the new paper said that numerical simulations provided preliminary support for the idea, but that they still could not explain how the gravity wave forms and propagates in the lower atmosphere. Advertisement Continue reading the main storyScientists also cannot yet answer the big question Akatsuki was sent to investigate: Why do the winds blow so fast on Venus to begin with?

Source: New York Times January 16, 2017 16:00 UTC