The European Space Agency (ESA) announced today that it has discovered a region "surprisingly cool" in the upper layers of the atmosphere of Venus, in which the temperature could be low enough to freeze carbon dioxide, forming ice or dry ice.
The study is based on data collected by the European spacecraft Venus Express for five years of observations, which saw some 125 kilometers from the surface of that planet will reach temperatures of 175 degrees Celsius.
Venus, he recalled the ESA, is famous for its dense carbon dioxide atmosphere and high temperatures that it causes on the surface, but that layer, even though the planet is much closer to the Sun than the Earth, is "much cooler" than any region of the Earth's atmosphere.
The discovery was made while measuring how sunlight filtered through the atmosphere of Venus, to determine the concentration of carbon dioxide molecules at different altitudes along the separation line between the illuminated and the shadow of the planet.
"The temperature profiles in the face bright and warm in the cold shadow is extremely different from the 120 km altitude," says the statement Mahieux Arnaud, lead author of the paper presenting the results in the "Journal of Geophysical Research."
Another project scientist for ESA Venus Express adds that as the finding is so recent yet to understand what could be its impact, but nevertheless considered that "something very special" because there has been no similar situations on Earth or Mars.
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