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Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Venus' Middle Clouds

Venus' Middle Clouds
Venus' Middle Clouds Akatsuki’s IR1 camera is specially designed to penetrate beneath the upper clouds and image the middle cloud deck, whose patterns are intriguingly variable. Akatsuki’s images have revealed patterns that vary with time and from one side of Venus to the other and has seen the superrotating winds change speed by as much as 20 meters per second (about 25 percent) from year to year. JAXA/DARTS/ISAS