Photo of Venus reveals the mysterious clouds of the planet by night
A photo taken by a Japanese spacecraft in orbit around Venus shows details of the mysterious world by night.
Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Akatsuki spacecraft snapped this image, which shows the clouds of Venus, in infrared light earlier this year as part of its mission to learn more about the planet's atmosphere.
But Akatsuki almost lost its chance to take this image and others like it. The robotic craft actually missed its first chance to get into orbit around Venus five years ago.
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Since arriving in orbit around the planet in 2015, the craft has made up for lost time, beaming back amazing images and data about the second planet from the sun.
Earlier in its mission, the spacecraft also produced a video of Venus' rotation and clouds.
"Akatsuki has cameras and instruments that will investigate unknowns about the planet, including whether volcanoes are still active, whether lightning occurs in the dense atmosphere, and why wind speeds greatly exceed the planet's rotation speed," NASA said in a statement about the photo.
In the newly-released photo, the orange line demarcating the day and night side of Venus looks quite wide because of the way the planet's clouds interact with the light of the sun.
Akatsuki isn't the only orbiter to take a look at Venus through the years. NASA, Europe and Russia have all previously sent spacecraft to the cloudy world as well.
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Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
