NASA's Parker Solar Probe Captures First Visible Light Images of Venus' Surface (dpreview.com) 24
dargaud writes: NASA's Parker Solar Probe has captured its first images of Venus' surface in visible light. The images show distinctive areas on the planetary surface, including continental regions, plains and plateaus. The images were taken on the nightside of the planet where the heat reemitted by the various surface areas has differing characteristics. "Venus is the third brightest thing in the sky, but until recently we have not had much information on what the surface looked like because our view of it is blocked by a thick atmosphere," said Brian Wood, lead author on the new study and physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. "Now, we finally are seeing the surface in visible wavelengths for the first time from space."
You can view images of Venus' surface in a video produced by NASA on YouTube.
You can view images of Venus' surface in a video produced by NASA on YouTube.
Russia 1st (Score:4, Informative)
NASA a distant 2nd, but still a terrific achievement.
Re:Russia 1st (Score:5, Informative)
From the video source, they were quite clear that this was Parker's first visible-light images of Venus. The linked site screwed up the title and suddenly they're the first ever images.
Of course /.'s editor never bothered to verify any of this.
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Incidentally, the descriptions one finds regarding Russia's Venera landers are quite something... "managed to transmit data and several photos of the surface for two hours - until it melted".
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Venus: the perfect holiday destination for the modern billionaire. /s
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It's not completely implausible. You wouldn't want to go to the surface, but the upper atmosphere has Earth-like temperature and pressure. An airship filled with Earth-type atmosphere would float at that height. As long as you had a supply of oxygen (or plenty of energy to extract it from the CO2 in the atmosphere), it would be quite possible to create a liveable environment. The manned interplanetary spacecraft to make the journey from Earth may be a bigger challenge.
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NASA a distant 2nd, but still a terrific achievement.
Still milking that one achievement? I guess when you have nothing else, it'll have to do. Meanwhile, for NASA:
First to land people on the moon (Russia has never done so)
First to land a probe on Mars (Russia has never done so)
First to fly a device on Mars (Russia has never done so)
First to send a probe to Jupiter (Russia has never done so)
First to send a probe to Saturn (Russia has never done so)
First to send a probe to Uranus (Russia has never done so)
First to send a probe to Neptune (Russia has never do
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Still milking that one achievement?
Wow! Ferocitus made a very stupid post, but you managed to out-stupid him by an astronomical distance.
The Russians had "one achievement" in space?
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Still milking that one achievement?
Wow! Ferocitus made a very stupid post, but you managed to out-stupid him by an astronomical distance. The Russians had "one achievement" in space?
Toxic nationalism with a large measure of stupidity mixed in is a pretty amazing thing. Stupidity is now a competitive event, amirite?
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NASA a distant 2nd, but still a terrific achievement.
Still milking that one achievement? I guess when you have nothing else, it'll have to do.
Eventually this whole " FIRST! " thing gets really old. Because it ends up diving into ridiculous firsts.
Y'all keep counting your FIRST! events. Subdivide them into more and more first details. I'll pay attention to present operations.
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First to put a human being in space.
What came after that (and it all came after that) was because we had a vastly superior economic system to the USSR. The "Space Race" was one of several "races" in which we compelled Russia to spend money as quickly as we did if they wanted to keep up. We didn't so much outrace them as we outspent them. When push came to shove, they decided to invest in growing their own food and developing weapon systems. They couldn't afford wine, wo
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North Korea has pulled off some impressive hacks as well - but no one tries to argue that means they aren’t a third-world hellhole.
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Somebody is both butt-hurt and excessively stupid about it at the same time...
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Messer Chups: First surf version of "Love will Tear us Apart".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Unreal (Score:3)
This is so bullshit, Venus isn't even real. Neither are birds.
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This is so bullshit, Venus isn't even real. Neither are birds.
Nor Canada.
Re: Unreal Tournament (Score:2)
forecast cloudy again today and 456 degrees (Score:1)
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All those jokes about Uranus but nobody ever makes a joke rhyming Venus with penis.
Au contraire, mon ami! Going back to elementary school in the 60s, I learned this one:
Mercury has to pee, but only Venus has a penis.
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Typical male behavior. (Score:5, Funny)
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We give them $1.5 billion to look at the Sun and they're gawking at Venus?
Buncha gawdamned voyeurs!