IA/U.Lisboa Seminar - Hot News from the Hot Venus - 10 outubro 2017

AKATSUKI (formerly Venus Climate Orbiter) is a space mission from JAXA devoted to the study of the climate of Venus. The orbiter was launched the 21st of May 2010 and arrived at Venus the 7 of December. 

Unfortunately, the orbit insertion was unsuccessful due to a failure in the propulsion system. After 5 years orbiting the Sun, a second chance allowed to perform a successful second orbit insertion the 7 of December of 2015. Since then, AKATSUKI has revealed a whole new Venus, finding the biggest stationary wave found in the planets of the Solar System, new profiles of temperature and static-stability, episodes of synchronization between the polar vortices, the presence of an powerful jet at the equatorial lower clouds and an abrupt cloud discontinuity that repeats every 4 days.