Venus Archives

Cloud discontinuity observed on the Venusian nightside lower clouds at a wavelength of 2.26 μm by Akatsuki IR2. Clouds appear as silhouettes illuminated from below, with dark areas indicating thicker clouds. The images were taken at (a) 15:33-UTC on August 18 and (b) 22:03-UTC on 27 August 2016. -- Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release, Venus

Venus’ Atmosphere Jumps And Waves

by Keith CowingMay 10, 2026May 10, 2026

The mysterious origin of an impressive cloud disturbance on Venus has now been revealed by a team including the University of Tokyo. Researchers used numerical models to show that an […]

Model prediction for the water budget of the 4 terrestrial planets

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Habitable Zones, Mars, Mercury, Status Report, Venus

Astrochemical Inheritance of Terrestrial Planets Water from Local Wet Silicates

by Keith CowingMay 1, 2026May 5, 2026

The delivery of water to the inner Solar System rocky planets, including Earth, remains debated, as standard models assume that they formed from dry grains, inside the snowline of the […]

A1. Final surface atmospheric pressure after 4 Gyr of volcanic degassing, shown as a function of mantle oxygen fugacity (fO2) and a. initial mantle CO2 content, b. initial mantle H2O content. Other mantle volatiles are held constant at fiducial values: 450 ppm H2O (Elkins-Tanton 2008), 50 ppm CO2 (Elkins-Tanton 2008), 54 ppm S, and 1 ppm N (scaled to the CO2 content of Earth’s depleted MORB; Ding & Dasgupta (2017); Marty & Dauphas (2003); Le Voyer et al. (2017) respectively). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Venus

Equifinality Of Venus-like CO2 Atmospheres

by Keith CowingMay 1, 2026May 1, 2026

While Earth locks much of its carbon in its crust as carbonates, Venus retains a comparable carbon inventory almost entirely in its atmosphere as CO2.

This image of Venus taken by NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft (left) is paired with an artist’s depiction of three possible atmospheres on a recently discovered exoplanet, Gliese 12b. This new University of Washington study explores how much surface water a planet needs to support life. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Planets Need More Water To Support Life Than Scientists Previously Thought

by Keith CowingApril 20, 2026April 20, 2026

Unfortunately for science fiction fans, desert worlds outside our solar system are unlikely to host life, according to new research from University of Washington. Scientists show that an Earth-sized planet […]

The formation mechanism of the lower haze. Cosmic dust entering from space is incorporated into sulfuric acid clouds. As sulfuric acid evaporates at the cloud base, the dust particles remain and coagulate to form the lower haze. ©Hiroki Karyu et al.

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Status Report, Venus

Cosmic Dust Identified As The Source Of Venus’ Enigmatic Lower Haze

by Keith CowingApril 17, 2026April 17, 2026

Venus, often called Earth’s twin, is in fact a planet of extremes. Beneath its thick carbon dioxide atmosphere lie crushing surface temperatures and dense clouds of sulfuric acid. While the […]

An artist's concept illustrates a dusty planet-forming disk -- NASA

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Mars, Mercury, Meteorites & Asteroids, Status Report, Venus

Homogeneous Accretion Of The Earth In The Inner Solar System

by Keith CowingApril 17, 2026April 17, 2026

Meteorites are classified as either non-carbonaceous- (NC) or carbonaceous (CC), representing bodies that likely formed in the inner- or outer solar system, respectively. Despite its location in the inner solar […]

Habitability factors at time period from ∼4.1 Ga till end of LHB (left) and current (right) Earth (green), Venus (yellow), and Mars (red). -- astro-ph.EP

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Mars, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Venus

Habitability Study of Terrestrial Planets: Application to Venus-like Worlds

by Keith CowingApril 9, 2026April 9, 2026

The study of planetary habitability beyond Earth remains a central and challenging project in planetary science. Analysis of large volumes of planetary data from space missions such as CoRoT, Kepler, […]

Fully corrected and calibrated albedos of Titan (yellow), Saturn (green), Uranus (blue), and Neptune (red) covering 0.3 µm to 2.1 µm, offset for clarity. Regions of strong telluric absorption are masked in lighter shades, and it should be noted that they are less reliably corrected. The flat regions in the UV were flagged as bad pixels in all images by X-shooter. We also highlight a vertical discontinuity between the VIS and NIR arms of Titan, which is likely due to weather inconsistency. The colors used for these objects are the same in the following figures. -- Astronomy & Astrophysics

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Ice Giant, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Status Report, Titan, Uranus

HiDef Neighbors: Solar System Objects As Exoplanet Analogs I. Gaseous Objects, Planets, Planetary Systems, And Small Bodies

by Keith CowingMarch 27, 2026

Context. Intermediate-resolution spectral observations are vital tools for characterizing the composition and physical properties of Solar System bodies in detail. At present, the planets and moons of our Solar System […]

A synthesized false color image of Venus using 283-nm and 365-nm images taken by UVI. Images are colorized as follows: 283 nm → blue; 365 nm → red; mixture of both → green. In the 283 nm band observed by UVI, there is an absorption band of sulfur dioxide (SO2). Also, there is an absorption band of an unidentified chemical substance in the 365 nm band. For example, it can be said that the amount of SO2 is relatively low in the bluish areas in this image. © PLANET-C Project Team — JAXA Larger image

Astrochemistry, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report, Venus

Stability and Reactivity of Alternative Nucleobases in Concentrated Sulfuric Acid.

by Keith CowingMarch 24, 2026March 24, 2026

Recent findings demonstrate that concentrated sulfuric acid supports rich organic chemistry, including the stability of the canonical DNA bases adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine.

Illustration of the processes implemented in our model

Analog Studies, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Status Report, Venus

Investigation Of Venus’ Thermal History, Crustal Evolution, And Core Dynamics With A Coupled Interior-lithosphere-atmosphere Model

by Keith CowingMarch 23, 2026March 23, 2026

We simulate Venus’ evolution with a coupled one-dimensional solar-atmosphere-lithosphere-mantle-core model to predict currently unobservable features and its eruptive mass flux.