Cosmic dust identified as the source of Venus' enigmatic lower haze

Stardust in the Clouds of Venus.

Venus has been hiding a secret for fifty years. Just below its main cloud deck sits a mysterious layer of haze that spacecraft first detected in the 1970s and nobody could explain where it came from. Now a research team in Japan has finally cracked it, and the answer comes from the last place most people would think to look!

Cosmic dust identified as the source of Venus' enigmatic lower haze

Venus, often called Earth's twin, is in fact a planet of extremes. Beneath its thick carbon dioxide atmosphere are crushing surface temperatures and dense clouds of sulfuric acid. While the planet's main cloud layer sits between 47 and 70 kilometers above the surface, scientists have long been puzzled by a mysterious layer of particles below 47 kilometers, known as the "lower haze." First detected by spacecraft in the 1970s, the origin of this h…

Cosmic dust found to be behind Venusian haze

Cosmic dust from shooting stars, not Venus itself, is responsible for a puzzling haze layer beneath the planet’s sulfuric acid clouds, new research reveals. At AQN, we like the odd, distracting flight of fancy into hitherto uncharted air quality realms, so imagine our joy when, having published a story on…