Parker Solar Probe captures Images of Venus Surface
- NASA’s Parker Solar Probe took its first visible light images of surface of Venus from space.
- Surface of Venus is usually shrouded from sight, covered in thick clouds. But in two recent flybys, Parker Solar Probe used its Wide-Field Imager (WISPR) to image the entire nightside in wavelengths of visible spectrum.
- It was a type of light that human eye can see and extend into near-infrared.
- The images were combined into a video, revealing a faint glow from the surface, which highlights distinctive features such as continental regions, plateaus and plains.
- A luminescent halo of oxygen can also be witnessed around the planet, in the atmosphere.
- The first WISPR images were taken in July 2020, when Parker embarked on its third flyby. Spacecraft uses the third flyby to bend its orbit closer to the Sun.
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