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...almost nothing about Venus, the earth's nearest (26 million miles) planetary neighbor. Its size, density and period of rotation are all uncertain, and no one has glimpsed its surface, which is always covered with clouds as opaque as marshmallows. In the latest Astrophysical Journal, Astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper of Yerkes Observatory tells how he learned at least a few facts about cloud-wrapped Venus...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Science: Venus Observed | 3/21/1955 | See Source »

Using the 82-in. telescope of McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas, Dr. Kuiper took 260 pictures with a filter that excluded all but violet light. Most of them showed six vague light-and-dark bands around the cloudy planet. Dr. Kuiper believes that the bands are connected with the climate zones of Venus, and that therefore they must be parallel to the Venusian equator. The earth has climate zones too, e.g., the cloudy band (the rainy doldrums) around the equator and the clear-aired bands (the dry "horse latitudes") on either side...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Science: Venus Observed | 3/21/1955 | See Source »

...Kuiper is sure that Venus' bands are due to rising or falling currents in its carbon-dioxide atmosphere. His theory is that where the currents are moving upward (as they do in the earth's doldrums), the fine yellow dust that forms the clouds of Venus is carried high. Where the currents move downward, the dust deck is lower, and above it lies a greater thickness of carbon dioxide. The CO2 reflects violet light better than the dust does, and this makes the down-current zones photograph brighter than the others. In light of longer wave length...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Science: Venus Observed | 3/21/1955 | See Source »

...comparing the photographs of faintly banded Venus with parallel lines drawn around a white globe, Dr. Kuiper decided where the Venusian equator must be. This told him the position of the poles and the axis of rotation that passes through them. The axis, he decided, is inclined about 32° from the plane of the ecliptic in which the planets revolve around the sun. Since the earth's inclination is only about 23½°, the seasonal changes of climate on Venus, due to the changing angle of sunlight, may be considerably more pronounced than they are on earth...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Science: Venus Observed | 3/21/1955 | See Source »

...whole, Dr. Kuiper concluded, the meteorology of waterless Venus must be rather simple. There are no ocean basins to complicate the circulation of the dusty carbon-dioxide winds. The yellow dust merely drifts along; it does not condense unpredictably and fall as capricious rain to confound meteorologists...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Science: Venus Observed | 3/21/1955 | See Source »

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