Science
And while was designed to study the sun’s atmosphere, its construction also happens to allow it to detect this unanticipated window of light. The photographs show a planet so hot that it glows, much like red-hot iron, said Brian Wood, an astrophysicist at the U.S. “It’s fortuitous that they happened to have an instrument that could see through the clouds,” says. The new photographs, Wood said, “may help in the interpretation. The images come as NASA prepares to launch two missions to Venus This pattern correlates well with topographic maps previously produced from radar and infrared surveys. It was during two such flybys in July 2020 and February 2021 that the probe’s telescopes captured the new images. Naval and a coauthor of the paper, during the social media event. “The pattern of bright and dark that you see is basically a temperature map,” he said — brighter regions are hotter and darker regions are cooler. While found Venus’ day side too bright to image, it was able t...