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Register a new userVenus cloud morphology and motions from ground-based images at the time of the Akatsuki orbit insertion
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We report Venus image observations around the two maximum elongations of the planet at June and October 2015. From these images we describe the global atmospheric dynamics and cloud morphology in the planet before the arrival of JAXA Akatsuki mission on December the 7th. The majority of the images were acquired at ultraviolet wavelengths (380-410 nm) using small telescopes. The Venus dayside was also observed with narrow band filters at other wavelengths (890 nm, 725-950 nm, 1.435 {mu}m CO2 band) using the instrument PlanetCam-UPV/EHU at the 2.2m telescope in Calar Alto Observatory. In all cases, the lucky imaging methodology was used to improve the spatial resolution of the images over the atmospheric seeing. During the April-June period, the morphology of the upper cloud showed an irregular and chaotic texture with a well developed equatorial dark belt (afternoon hemisphere), whereas during October-December the dynamical regime was dominated by planetary-scale waves (Yhorizontal, C-reversed and {psi}-horizontal features) formed by long streaks, and banding suggesting more stable conditions. Measurements of the zonal wind velocity with cloud tracking in the latitude range from 50$^{circ}$N to 50$^{circ}$S shows agreement with retrievals from previous works.
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Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter/AKATSUKI was proposed in 2001 with strong support by international Venus science community and approved as an ISAS (The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) mission soon after the proposal. The mission life we expected was more than two Earth years in Venus orbit. AKATSUKI was successfully launched at 06:58:22JST on May 21, 2010, by H-IIA F17. After the separation from H-IIA, the telemetry from AKATSUKI was normally detected by DSN Goldstone station (10:00JST) and the solar cell paddles deployment was confirmed. After a successful cruise, the malfunction happened on the propulsion system during the Venus orbit insertion (VOI) on Dec 7, 2010. The engine shut down before the planned reduction in speed to achieve. The spacecraft did not enter the Venus orbit, but entered an orbit around the Sun with a period of 203 days. Most of the fuel still had remained, but the orbital maneuvering engine was found to be broken and unusable. However, we have found an alternate way of achieving orbit by using only the reaction control system (RSC). We had adopted the alternate way for orbital maneuver and three minor maneuvers in Nov 2011 were successfully done so that AKATSUKI would meet Venus in 2015. We are considering several scenarios for VOI using only RCS.
The Venusian atmosphere is in a state of superrotation where prevailing westward winds move much faster than the planets rotation. Venus is covered with thick clouds that extend from about 45 to 70 km altitude, but thermal radiation emitted from the lower atmosphere and the surface on the planets nightside escapes to space at narrow spectral windows of the near-infrared. The radiation can be used to estimate winds by tracking the silhouettes of clouds in the lower and middle cloud regions below about 57 km in altitude. Estimates of wind speeds have ranged from 50 to 70 m/s at low to mid-latitudes, either nearly constant across latitudes or with winds peaking at mid-latitudes. Here we report the detection of winds at low latitude exceeding 80 m/s using IR2 camera images from the Akatsuki orbiter taken during July and August 2016. The angular speed around the planetary rotation axis peaks near the equator, which we suggest is consistent with an equatorial jet, a feature that has not been observed previously in the Venusian atmosphere. The mechanism producing the jet remains unclear. Our observations reveal variability in the zonal flow in the lower and middle cloud region that may provide clues to the dynamics of Venuss atmospheric superrotation.
We present measurements of the wind speeds at the nightside lower clouds of Venus from observations by JAXAs mission Akatsuki during 2016, complemented with new wind measurements from ground-based observations acquired with TNG/NICS in 2012 and IRTF/SpeX in 2015 and 2017. Zonal and meridional components of the winds were measured from cloud tracking on a total of 466 Akatsuki images of Venus acquired by the camera IR2 using the 2.26-$mathrm{mu m}$ filter, with spatial resolutions ranging 10--80 km per pixel and covering from 2016 March 22 to October 31. More than 149,000 wind vectors were obtained with an automatic technique of template matching, and 2,947 wind vectors were inferred with the manual procedure. The meridional profiles for both components of the winds are found to be consistent with results from the Venus Express mission during 2006--2008, although stronger wind variability is found for the zonal component at equatorial latitudes where Akatsuki observations have better viewing geometry than Venus Express. The zonal winds at low latitudes also suggest a zonal variability that could be associated with solar tides or vertically propagating orographic waves. Finally, the combination of our wind measurements from TNG/NICS, IRTF/SpeX and Akatsuki images with previously published and based in data from 1978 to 2017 suggests variations of up to 30 m s$^{-1}$ in the winds at the lower clouds of the Venus nightside.
Longwave Infrared Camera (LIR) onboard Akatsuki first revealed the global structure of the thermal tides in the upper cloud layer of Venus. The data were acquired over three Venusian years, and the analysis was done over the areas from the equator to the mid-latitudes in both hemispheres and over the whole local time. Thermal tides at two vertical levels were analyzed by comparing data at two different emission angles. Dynamical wave modes consisting of tides were identified; the diurnal tide consisted mainly of Rossby-wave and gravity-wave modes, while the semidiurnal tide predominantly consisted of a gravity-wave mode. The revealed vertical structures were roughly consistent with the above wave modes, but some discrepancy remained if the waves were supposed to be monochromatic. In turn, the heating profile that excites the tidal waves can be constrained to match this discrepancy, which would greatly advance the understanding of the Venusian atmosphere.
The so-called unknown absorber in the clouds of Venus is an important absorber of solar energy, but its vertical distribution remains poorly quantified. We analyze the 283 and 365-nm phase curves of the disk-integrated albedo measured by Akatsuki. Based on our models, we find that the unknown absorber can exist either well-mixed over the entire upper cloud or within a thin layer. The necessary condition to explain the 365-nm phase curve is that the unknown absorber must absorb efficiently within the cloud scale height immediately below the cloud top. Using this constraint, we attempt to extract the SO$_2$ abundance from the 283-nm phase curve. However we cannot disentangle the absorption by SO$_2$ and by the unknown absorber. Considering previous SO$_2$ abundance measurements at mid-infrared wavelengths, the required absorption coefficient of the unknown absorber at 283~nm must be more than twice that at 365~nm.
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