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Mahesh

07/05/21 02:00 AM IST

Study about Venus

In News 
  • A team from the University of California, Los Angeles used radar to determine the exact length of a day on Venus, the size of its nucleus, and its specific tilt angle, treating it like a "giant disco ball".
Details 
  • Data obtained by bouncing radio waves off Venus - treating it, as one scientist said, like a giant disco ball - is providing new insight into Earth's closest planetary neighbour, including a precise calculation of the duration of a Venusian day.
  • The study also measured the tilt of the Venusian axis and the size of the planet's core, allowing for a deeper understanding of an enigmatic world sometimes called Earth's 'evil twin.'
  • It was already known that Venus has the longest day - the time the planet takes for a single rotation on its axis - of any planet in our solar system, though there were discrepancies among previous estimates.
  • The study found that a single Venusian rotation takes 243.0226 Earth days.
  • That means a day lasts longer than a year on Venus, which makes a complete orbit around the sun in 225 Earth days.
  • The researchers transmitted radio waves toward Venus 21 times from 2006 to 2020 from Nasa's Goldstone Antenna in the Mojave Desert of California and studied the radio-echo, which provided information on certain planetary traits, at Goldstone and at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia.
  • Venus is an amazing laboratory for understanding planet formation and evolution, and it's a stone's throw away.
  • There are likely billions of Venus-like planets in the galaxy.
  • The new data showed that the Venusian planetary core has a diameter of about 4,360 miles (7,000 km), comparable to Earth's core.
  • Its core is almost certainly composed of iron and nickel, though it is unclear whether it is solid or molten.
About Venus 
  • Venus spins on its axis almost upright - meaning it lacks discernable seasons - while Earth has more of a tilt.
  • The study calculated the Venusian tilt at about 2.64 degrees. Earth's is about 23.5 degrees.
  • Venus, the second planet from the sun, is similar in structure but slightly smaller than Earth, with a diameter of about 7,500 miles (12,000 km).
  • Above its foreboding landscape is a thick and toxic atmosphere that consists primarily of carbon dioxide, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets.
  • With a runaway greenhouse effect, its surface temperatures reach 880 degrees Fahrenheit (471 degrees Celsius), hot enough to melt lead.
  • Venus spins from east to west, in the opposite direction from all other planets in our solar system but Uranus.
  • In another quirk, its day-night cycle - the time between sunrises as opposed to the length of a single axial spin - takes 117 Earth days because Venus rotates in the direction opposite of its orbital path around the sun.
Source- India Today 

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