Venus Atmosphere vs the Orbiter

[MarsG76]

Hello everyone,

Hope you all had a great Christmas.

I was looking at some Venus Orbiter UV photos (I think also known as Pioneer 12??) from 1978. The thing bothering me, or I'm curious about is that looking at my image cloud pattern compared to the Orbiter images, the cloud structure or shape looks very similar. How could that be, surely the cloud pattern would have changed in the time from 1978 to 2016!!

My explanation is that the equatorial region spins faster then the pole and tend to generate a similar pattern regardless how long apart we're observing or imaging the planet.

Option 2: A conspiracy, Venus is just a projection and we're not meant to see the cloud structure so the gummement didn't bother updating the "atmosphere", HAHA OK that one was a joke, but does anyone have another explanation?

Attached is a image with my pic on the top and the two Orbiter photos I found online with the dark side painted over.

 

Clear Skies,

MG

 

[Dave In Vermont]

I, too, was noting this phenomena for quite some time. And my conclusion was that it must be due to the existing topography beneath the clouds - where we can't see with our own eyes. So one would need a topo-map of the surface of Venus (as deduced by radar-mapping, which we Humans have managed), and the exact times these features in the clouds were taken in relation to the planetary-rotation. I think you get what I'm getting at?

Anywho - armed with such data - this theory I'm suggesting could be proven or disproven somewhat easily.

Thanks for noticing this! Nice to know more than just I have taken notice of this Venusian oddity!

'Ta,

Dave

[ronin]

Not sure of any of this but I get the idea that Venus has little in the way of topology - mountains etc - so not a lot to break up atmospheric flows. The top pic looks much like we have on Earth in a way, a central equatorial climate band. The hot air at the equator rises and flows out until it cools sufficently to drop down again. The other upper band may be the same - we have 3 bands per hemisphere here so maybe similar.

The atmosphere on Venus is a lot denser so likely more fluid like. That could also cause featuers in the atmosphere to be more permanent. Lets remember that the Great Red Spot has been around a long time.

In a way the Earth may be the "odd" one. Jupiter has atmospheric bands that are or seem semi-permanent, Saturn has bands, Neptune has also, Mars has no real atmosphere, neither does Mercury. Not sure about atmospheric bands on Uranus so Venus having them just sort of fits in. Ours gets a bit broken by tectonic movement and a few mountain ranges. Equally I would suspct that in the IR our atmospheric bands are more or less permantent, if viewed from Mars or the moon.

[Dave In Vermont]

I have a full set of topographic-maps of Venus, and would post some - but their average size is over 100MB each. But a simple 'google' will get you there. I'll start you off, Ronin:

http://cseligman.com/text/planets/magellanmap.htm

Regards what may be accountable on the surface may not need be towering mountains (it has some mountains though). It could be a constant venting of hot gases from within Venus itself. Who really knows? We still have only scratched the surface of Venusian geography & physics. The mystery of the shrouded Venus that has always drawn me to read any & all new discoveries of our "Sister Planet."

Venus: The Pizza-Oven Planet,

Dave

[Pete Presland]

A mighty impressive earthbound image, whatever maybe the cause of the cloud patterns.

[neil phillips]

I think whatever is generating the UV cloud. Or to be more precise what is generating the part of the cloud that is the UV absorber. Will to a degree produce similar patterns over any length of time. As the UV horns that have often been Noted. Having said that. Venus can often throw a few surprises in UV, on one occasion I got stripes. For all the world it looked more like Jupiter. So both scenarios are possible, similar shapes and structures, and completely unexpected shapes I have found. Which also makes it more interesting to capture of course.

Your getting some good detail. I have seen some stunning work of late from Oz.  Yours and others. Keep posting, its a very interesting pursuit. That I hope to get back into myself soon

Just out of interest what roughly was the elevation when this was taken ?