Quick hit post from beautiful Walnut, Iowa, but this was too interesting to pass up...
Bright plume spotted on Venus, image taken by the ESA Venus Express.
Did a volcanic eruption recently occur on Venus? No one really knows, but a bright plume of unknown material was spotted by an amateur astronomer. One possible source for this plume might be a volcanic eruption. In the first articles, it was dismissed by "experts" because it is believed that Venus mostly has effusive (lava flow) eruptions not explosive eruptions that form big ash-laden plumes. However, basaltic eruptions on Earth (as it is presumed to occur on Venus) do release a lot of volcanic aerosols - possible more than classical explosive eruptions. Laki in Iceland had just such an eruption in 1783 ... just something to ponder when more information on the Venutian plume rolls in.
Physical Science
Environment
Comments (97)
I saw a piece on this a few days back, but didn't think to send you a heads up. I was a little dubious, but curious. Any idea if there are any active satellites that could possibly do high-enough resolution spectroscopy of Venus to look for potential aerosols? I'd guess that CO2 and H2O would be swamped by the atmosphere, as would sulfates. But perhaps Cl or F could be picked up and shown to be outside normal Venusian conditions.
Posted by: Lockwood | August 2, 2009 10:32 PM