Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.4510s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #45.10; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.503
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
After more than two Venus sidereal days (486 Earth days) in orbit, the Venus Express spacecraft remains in an excellent condition. More than 1 Terabit of science data of extraordinary quality has been downlinked to ground. Processing and analysis of the data returned during this period has already led to new insights in several fields related to the atmosphere of Venus.
Venus Express is the first mission fully exploiting the infrared spectral windows in a systematic way in order to map the atmosphere in three dimensions. The observations show a highly dynamic atmosphere, including close-ups of the southern polar double vortex with quickly moving fine structures at several different altitudes. For most of the time the atmosphere can be divided into three distinctly different dynamic regions. - The equatorial region, dominated by a turbulent atmosphere mainly driven by convection, a mid latitude region dominated by a smooth laminar like flow, and the polar region dominated by a cold collar and a vast complex vortex system. The dynamics is mainly studied by the Virtis and VMC instruments. Several minor species at various depths of the atmosphere, including D/H ratios as function of altitude are being characterised by the SpicaV spectrometer and the Virtis high spectral resolution channel. The upper atmosphere and plasma environment and interaction between these is studied by the Aspera instrument, the Magnetometer and radio science by occultation.
A brief report of the status of the mission is given together with a summary of the major findings from the first part of the mission and an outline of the plans for the future activities.
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