Reworked images reveal hot Venus

BBC ^ | 1-13-03 | Dr David Whitehouse

[Central Scrutiniser]

Reworked images reveal hot Venus

By Dr David Whitehouse

Mars it is not: Reprocessed Venus image

As the world looks at Mars, an American scientist has produced the best images ever obtained from the surface of a rather different planet - Venus.

The second planet from the Sun is blanketed with a thick layer of cloud.

Computer researcher Don Mitchell used original digital data from two Soviet Venera probes that landed in 1975.

His reprocessed and recalibrated images provide a much clearer view of the Venusian surface which is hotter even than the inside of a household oven.

Original digital data

Between 1975 and 1981 Soviet probes landed on Venus 10 times.

Venera 9 survived to send back pictures

All the Venera craft survived the landing and four of them sent back images of the inhospitable surface, where the temperature is 490 deg Celsius and the pressure is 90 times that on Earth.

The cameras that looked out on to this baking world were, for their time, remarkable pieces of technology. They were protected by high-pressure windows made of quartz one centimetre thick.

But they did obtain the first view of what was a rock-strewn surface with soil, slabs and boulders.

For years, scientists have paid little attention to the pictures. Indeed, the images were usually only available as low-quality photographs in books.

Venera 9's view has been reprocessed to make it clearer As part of a study of the Soviet exploration of Venus, Don Mitchell obtained the original digital data from the first probes that touched down, Veneras 9 and 10.

"In a collection of old Russian data I found a file that contained the original 6-bit per pixel Venera 9 and 10 digital images," he told BBC News Online.

He used up-to-date digital processing techniques on the raw data from those spacecraft, as well as from subsequent Veneras.

"I took the raw data and carried out processes such as sharpening, recalibrating and compensating for blurring," he said.

The results are a dramatic improvement on the images previously released from Veneras 9 and 10.

Don Mitchell is now turning his attention to the data returned by subsequent Venera probes.

He has started processing data from Venera 13, which are of twice the resolution of Veneras 9 and 10, and in colour. He believes they can also be improved.

Reprocessed images copyright Don Mitchell

[Central Scrutiniser]

Some of the reprocessed pictures:

Venera 13, Camera I

Venera 13, Camera II

[NormsRevenge]

Wow!!! Great stuff! Thanks!

[John H K]

Oddly the Soviets always had better luck landing on Venus than Mars. Remarkable to get anything down there that can survive (though none of the Soviet probes lasted more than a few hours I think.)

They dealt in volume, sent a HUGE number of Venus probes out, most of which actually failed in Earth orbit.

[RightWhale]

Very nice images. Venus has next to no tides like earth. Apparently the surface is active, lots happening.

[Central Scrutiniser]

If you can handle the heat, its a much easier landing, as the atmosphere is so thick. In the photos, you can see a bit of the horizion, the view is warped I believe, by the heavy atmosphere. Here is some more info on the last 2 landers:

Venera 13 and 14 were identical spacecraft built to take advantage of the 1981 Venus launch opportunity and launched 5 days apart. The Venera 14 mission consisted of a bus (81-110A) and an attached descent craft (81-110D). The Venera 14 descent craft/lander was a hermetically sealed pressure vessel, which contained most of the instrumentation and electronics, mounted on a ring-shaped landing platform and topped by an antenna. The design was similar to the earlier Venera 9-12 landers. It carried instruments to take chemical and isotopic measurements, monitor the spectrum of scattered sunlight, and record electric discharges during its descent phase through the Venusian atmosphere. The spacecraft utilized a camera system, an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, a screw drill and surface sampler, a dynamic penetrometer, and a seismometer to conduct investigations on the surface.

After launch and a four month cruise to Venus, the descent vehicle separated from the bus and plunged into the Venus atmosphere on 5 March 1982. After entering the atmosphere a parachute was deployed. At an altitude of about 50 km the parachute was released and simple airbraking was used the rest of the way to the surface. Venera 14 landed about 950 km southwest of Venera 13 near the eastern flank of Phoebe Regio at 13 deg 15 min S by 310 E on a basaltic plain. After landing an imaging panorama was started and a mechanical drilling arm reached to the surface and obtained a sample, which was deposited in a hermetically sealed chamber, maintained at 30 degrees C and a pressure of about .05 atmospheres. The composition of the sample was determined by the X-ray flourescence spectrometer, showing it to be similar to oceanic tholeiitic basalts. The lander survived for 57 minutes (the planned design life was 32 minutes) in an environment with a temperature of 465 degrees C and a pressure of 94 Earth atmospheres. The descent vehicle transmitted data to the bus, which acted as a data relay as it flew by Venus.

[Mark]

Oh, the thread title refers to a planet, not a person-- never mind...

[ValerieUSA]

Perhaps Al Gore's global warming speech would make sense on Venus.

[Chi-townChief]

Yeah - "Hot Venus" was really an attention-grabber.

[Monty22]

I always thought these were amazing, unrecognized pictures.

Glad to see some notice of them now.

[blackdog]

I've never thought that so many pictures of the Arizona desert would become so enormously popular around the globe.

In order to authenticate these efforts as not part of some Capricorn 1 conspiracy, I'm holding out for a picture that looks like the Okefenokee Swamp.

[Central Scrutiniser]

Some more photos:

Venera 9

Venera 10

[Snickersnee]

A hot Venus is the very best kind!

[John H K]

US has never even tried a Venus Lander.

I think with advances in materials science and hardened electronics (Soviets were never good at electronics) we could land a probe or rover that could last for months now.

US doesn't have a single Venus mission planned or even in the proposal stage.

[nightdriver]

That sounds awfully high pressure for the atmosphere. Are they sure of it? 94 atmospheres is equivalent to 1381 psia!

That's the pressure of being 3000 feet under the sea!

[martin_fierro]

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[Central Scrutiniser]

Yep, add in the fact that much of the atmosphere is about 800 degrees farenheit and is loaded with sulfluric acid, and its a nasty place. Pretty flat too, as you would expect.

I'd still prefer it to Branson, MO.

[RightWhale]

US has a Mercury orbiter nearing readiness for launch. US has had missions to Venus. Lately they have used radar to map the surface, radar from earth using two of the large radio telescopes as source. Long base line.

[Fred Hayek]

The way the Venus probes survived the heat on the surface used a bit of a brute force method. Before separation from the bus, apparently the inside of the lander was refrigerated (my guess it had had a nitrogen internal atmosphere.). A NASA engineer had comment on it, using the term "brute force" engineering, it worked.

[Izzy Dunne]

the temperature is 490 deg Celsius and the pressure is 90 times that on Earth.

490 deg. C = 914 degrees F.!
90 atmospheres = 1323 PSI!

Yikes!

Still better than NYC in August...