page_title: Atmosphere of Venus
section_title: Recent and current spaceprobes
hierarchical_section_title: Atmosphere of Venus / Space missions / Recent and current spaceprobes
caption_attribution_description: A Venus in situ exploration mission will help us understand the climate change processes that led to the extreme conditions on Venus today and lay the groundwork for a future Venus sample return mission.
context_page_description: The atmosphere of Venus is the layer of gases surrounding Venus. It is composed primarily of carbon dioxide and is much denser and hotter than that of Earth. The temperature at the surface is 740 K, and the pressure is 93 bar, roughly the pressure found 900 m underwater on Earth. The Venusian atmosphere supports opaque clouds of sulfuric acid, making optical Earth-based and orbital observation of the surface impossible. Information about the topography has been obtained exclusively by radar imaging. Aside from carbon dioxide, the other main component is nitrogen. Other chemical compounds are present only in trace amounts.
  Aside from the very surface layers, the atmosphere is in a state of vigorous circulation. The upper layer of troposphere exhibits a phenomenon of super-rotation, in which the atmosphere circles the planet in just four Earth days, much faster than the planet's sidereal day of 243 days. The winds supporting super-rotation blow at a speed of 100 m/s or more. Winds move at up to 60 times the speed of the planet's rotation, while Earth's fastest winds are only 10% to 20% rotation speed.
context_section_description: The Venus Express spacecraft formerly in orbit around the planet probed deeper into the atmosphere using infrared imaging spectroscopy in the 1–5 µm spectral range.
  The JAXA probe Akatsuki (Venus Climate Orbiter), launched in May 2010, is studying the planet for a period of two years, including the structure and activity of the atmosphere, but it failed to enter Venus orbit in December 2010. A second attempt to achieve orbit succeeded 7 December 2015. Designed specifically to study the planet's climate, Akatsuki is the first meteorology satellite to orbit Venus (the first for a planet other than Earth). One of its five cameras known as the "IR2" will be able to probe  the atmosphere of the planet underneath its thick clouds, in addition to its movement and distribution of trace components. With a highly eccentric orbit (periapsis altitude of 400 km and apoapsis of 310,000 km), it will be able to take close-up photographs of the planet, and should also confirm the presence of both active volcanoes as well as lightning.
caption: Venus In-Situ Explorer proposed by NASA's New Frontiers program
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