Venus Express: The first European Mission to Venus

Venus Express is the first European Space Mission to this planet and the first mission to Venus in 10 years. It will study its atmosphere, surface and space environment unveiling some of the misteries that remain hidden by its thick clouds. Venus was once an Earth twin in size and probably atmospheric composition but its geological and atmospheric evolutions have made it an inhospitable planet with a surface temperature higher than 460ºC and an atmospheric pressure 90 times larger than that on Earth. It is also covered by an extense system of clouds that extend over 20 km in height and are formed by sulfuric acid droplets. The clouds do not allow to observe directly the surface except by radar. This mission (launched in a record time since its proposal and approval) will cover many open questions that intrigue scientists today.


Our research group is specially interested in the large-scale dynamics of the atmosphere at the cloud visible level (more than 50 km above the surface) the characterization of the cloud layers as well as the comparison of the atmospheres of Earth and Venus. We participate in the mission through VIRTIS (Visual InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer). It will obtain both images and spectra of the planet allowing to study the clouds seen illuminated by Sun light and the atmosphere at night through the output of infrared radiation from the warm lower levels.


About the logo:
The logo at the upper left header represents the Basque Country University and was designed by sculpturer Eduardo Chillida. The logo at the header in these webpages is a representation of Venus (as seeing by the Galileo spacecraft) seen above the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art in Bilbao. A large version of this logo can be found here.