Atmosphere, temperature, and cloud cover of Venu

Martynov, D.

English

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S O M E T H I N G  N E W  A B O U T  V E N U S  
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G o d d a r d  S p a c e  F l i g h t  C e n t e r  
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
Goddard Space Flight Center 
Contract No.NAS-5-12487 
ST- PR- LPS- 10 628 
S O M E T H I N G  N E W  A B O U T  V E N U S  
Prof. D. Martynov 
Director 
State Astronomical Institute 
(Shternberg) 
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(NASA CR OR TMX OR AD NUMBER) (CATEGORY) 
GPO PRICE $ 
22 JUNE 1967 CFSTI PRICE(S1 $ 
ST- PR- LPS- 10628 
Column from the 
Newspaper Pravda No.165 
MOSCOW, 14 June 1967 
S+CMETHING NEW ABOUT VENUS 
. (*> 
by Prof. D. Martynov 
Director, 
State Astronom. Inst. 
(Shternberg) 
On 12 June of the current year, the Soviet cosmic rocket (VFMJS-4) 
took off toward planet Venus with an interplanetary station. 
will last more than four months. 
enigmas of this planet. 
Its flight 
The present column is devoted to the 
* 
* * 
Venus is the nearest planet to us of the solar system. It rotates around 
the Sun at the distance of 109,000,000 
tion in 225 terrestrial days. 
between the Earth and the Sun, its distance from the Earth may become less 
than 40,000,000 kilometers. 
Venus. 
kilometers, effecting a total revolu- 
When Venus is in the lower conjunction, i. e., 
No other planets get as close to Earth as does 
Our ciosest cosmic neighbor is often called "sister of the Earth", and 
nobody had objected against such acomparison till the last decade. 
itsmass and dimensions are only just a little smaller than those of our own 
planet. 
in the upper layers by clouds strongly resembling those of the Earth. 
on Earth clouds converge or diverge at times, on Venus the cloud layer is very 
steady, so that there is no possibility of drawing a chart of Venusian surface. 
The same cause has prevented to determine with what period Venus rotates about 
its axis. 
was reliable, is that the rotation is very slaw. 
In reality 
But 
A s  the Earth, Venus is surrounded by a dense atmosphere, which is filled 
Even the rotation direction remained &own. The only thing that 
The theoretical calculations, bzsed upon the assumption of analogy of 
A good corroboration of this was found during 
both planets' atmospheres, lead to the estimate of average temperature of Venus 
as being between +40 and +5d°C. 
direct measurement of the temperature of Venus' cloud layer., It was found to 
be about -40°. 
at cirrus cloud level. 
The same or even lower temperature is encountered on Earth 
(*) NovoyE 0 VENERE 
2 .  
Spectral analysis has shown that there i s  very little water'vapor on Venus I 
but a great deal of carbon dioxide, from 1UU to 1000 times more than in the 
Earth's atmosphere. But there are no reliable signs of any kind to suggest 
data refer fundamentally to above-cloud layers of Venus ' atmosphere. 
?he thermal flux, oribinating from Venus in centimeter waves, was first 
reliably detected and measured in 1956. The result was entirely unexpected. 
The flux was found to be significant and corresponded to temperatures in the 
range +300 - +350° .  Subsequent intensified observations of Venus by means IDf 
radiotelescopes in our country and in the USA and England only confirmed these 
figures, and then the question arose immediately: how can this be ? The most 
substantiated theory looks as follows. 
the presence of oxygen. Nor anything is known about nitrogen. All these 9 
The temperature +300 - +350° refers to the hard surface of the planet. 
Then the atmosphere pressure on 
At cloud level the temperature is-40'. 
there must lie between the clouds and the surface a powerful atmosphere with 
thiclmess of not less  than 50 kilometers. 
the surface of Venus must be enormous, from 5 to 50 atm., i. e.,from 50 to 500 
tons per m2, according to various calculations. Such high pressures and tempe- 
ratures make the landing of a spacecraft on Venus either impossible or extreme- 
ly difficult. If earlier Venus was considered, with a certain strained inter- 
pretation, as the "terrestrial paradise", now we are compelled to speak in tenns 
of a true '%ell". 
In order t o  make such a drop possible, 
But where is the source of such high temperatures? As is well known, 
planets differ from stars in that their proper heat reserves are insignificant 
and their temperature regime on the surface is determined by the amount of 
heat they receive fram the Sun, and the amount they emit back to space. These 
two quantities must be identical to make the thermal equilibrium on the planet 
possible. But at what temperature ? This depends on the physical properties 
of the atmosphere. If the atmosphere is quite nontransparent to infrared rays 
and quite transpairent to the radiation visible to naked eye, the equilibrium 
will be established at high temperature, i. e. there will take place exactly 
what actually is observed on Venus. 
houses, is endowed with identical properties 
phenomenon itself is called the greenhouse effect. 
still are unaware of any gas, amongst those in presence, that would be endowed 
with so strong a greenhouse effect,.as that required for sustaining the high 
temperature of Venus. 
Venus is so hot. 
The glass, successfully used in green- 
The to retain infrared rays. 
Unfortunately, to date we 
h d  consequeptly, we are in no position to explain why 
There was no flaw in the attempts to by-pass this difficulty. The first 
reaction to it consisted in that the greenhouse effect theory was generally 
bound to be dropped, and that the temperature of +350° ought to be viewed 
not as the temperature of Venus' surface but of the uppermost Aayers of the 
atmosphere, that is, of the ionosphere lying substantially above clouds. 
emission will be quite weak in visible and infrared rays, and strong in the 
radioband. 
times denser than the Earth's ionosphere, and this situation is unintelligible 
and thus unacceptable. 
Its 
But in this case, this would be a very dense ioriosphere, 1000 
3 .  
Temperature measurements of \,'enus revealed a curious fact, i. e. the prac- 
tical equality of temperatures on the day and night sides of the planet. This 
is strange. 
prolonged. 
it must cool off during the night despite the enveloping atmosphere. 
if there is no such thing, it means that the planet has sufficiently large 
reserves of proper heat. 
three countries, including our own, the group of academician V. A. Kotel'nikov, 
succeeded in radar locating Venus, i. e. to dispatch 
ceive its reflection. 
cloud wrap of Venus and of drawing in the future its radiochart. 
ready radar location of Venus contributed 
the reflected radiosignal has shown that Venus rotates about its axis very 
slowly. 
around the Sun, case almost exceptional in our entire Solar System. 
A day is very long on Venus, and both the day and the night are 
During the day the surface of Venus must be strongly heated, and 
However, 
As is well known, in the course of the past few years radiophysicists of 
a radiosignal and re- 
Thus emerges the possibility of breaking through the 
But now al- 
most important results, in that 
Moreover, it rotates toward the side opposite to its yearly motion 
Striving to understand the physical nature of Venus, scientists apply newer 
and newer means of investigation. One of the most effective amongst these in 
our times is the dispatching toward Venus of observational automatic stations 
on cosmic rockets. 
course of space station's fly-by the planet. 
In this case the planet will appear for all the various 
the station not as a minuscule disk or crescent, b1Jt as a large disk or cres- 
cent, covering'half of the sky', so that the study of the planet may be con- 
ducted not "in general and as a whole", but in detail, by parts. The planet 
may then be studied in ultraviolet, infrared, in micro and submicrowaves, 
without interference from the terrestrial atmosphere. 
that the apparatus operate without failure, and that the information flow 
without a hitch. 
Even without landing a great deal can be learned in the 
devices on board 
It is only of importance 
Let us hope that the flight of our cosmic r'envoy'' will bring us new and 
important discoveries, which we, astronomers, await with impatience. 
**A* T HE E N D 
Contract No.NAS-5-12487 
VOLT TECHNICAL CORPORATION 
Translated by ANDRE L. BRICHANT 
on 22 June 1967 
DISTRIBUTION 
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Something new about Venus

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