Earth’s weather satellites just spent 10 years watching Venus — here’s what they found

Weather Satellites Can Even Study the Weather Over on Venus

A pair of Japanese weather satellites took a break from monitoring Earth weather to sneak a peek at Planet Venus. Despite the fact that it's relatively tiny, and millions of kilometers away, they were able to detect changes in Venus' cloud-top temperatures and see patterns and structure in its upper atmosphere. There are long-term trends on Venus that these long-lasting satellites will be able to study, beyond the timeframe of a shorter mission.

Earth’s weather satellites just spent 10 years watching Venus — here’s what they found

Japan’s Himawari weather satellites, designed to watch Earth, have quietly delivered a decade of infrared snapshots of Venus. By stitching 437 images together, scientists tracked daily thermal tides and shifting planetary waves in the planet’s cloud tops, even flagging calibration quirks in past spacecraft data.