User:Vanessa1663/Atmosphere of Venus

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Atmosphere of Venus

Lightning
The clouds of Venus may be capable of producing lightning, but the debate is ongoing, with volcanic lightning and sprites also under discussion. The Soviet Venera 9 and 10 orbiters obtained ambiguous optical and electromagnetic evidence of lightning. There have been attempts to observe lightning from the Venera 11, 12, 13, and 14 landers, however no lightning activity was recorded, but very low frequency (VLF) waves were detected during descent. The European Space Agency's Venus Express in 2007 detected whistler waves which could be attributed to lightning. Their intermittent appearance indicates a pattern associated with weather activity. According to the whistler observations, the lightning rate is at least half of that on Earth and may possibly be similar, but this is incompatible with data from the JAXA Akatsuki spacecraft which indicate a very low flash rate.

The Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO) was equipped with an electric field detector specifically to detect lightning. There were other missions that were equipped with instruments to search for lightning including the Venera 9 which had the visible spectrometer; Pioneer which had the star sensor; and VEGA which had a photometer.

The mechanism generating lightning on Venus, if present, remains unknown. Whilst the sulfuric acid cloud droplets can become charged, the atmosphere may be too electrically conductive for the charge to be sustained, preventing lightning. The source region could possibly begin in the early afternoon much like Earth however, the region has not been probed by either the United States or the USSR.

There are theories on the contribution of lightning on the atmospheric chemistry, if the occurrence rate of lighting is much more frequent than on Earth or if its similar. Lightning could possibly produce heat >30,000 K, breaking apart molecules that contain carbon, oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and hydrogen molecules (carbon dioxide, nitrogen gas, sulfuric acid, and water), that will recombine to form new molecules ("carbon oxides," "suboxides," "sulfur oxides," "oxygen," "elemental sulfur," "nitrogen oxides," "sulfuric acid clusters," "polysulfur oxides," "carbon soot," etc.). Lightning can contribute to the production of carbon monoxide and oxygen gas by converting sulfur and sulfur dioxide into sulfuric acid, and water and sulfuric dioxide to sulfur to sustain clouds. Regardless of how frequent lightning on Venus is, it is important to study as it can be a potential hazard for spacecraft.

Throughout the 1980s, it was thought that the cause of the night-side glow ("ashen glow") on Venus was lightning however, there may be the possibility that Venus lightning would be too weak to cause it.