Chasing clouds on Venus Clouds regularly punctuate Earth’s blue sky, but on Venus the clouds never part, for the planet is wrapped entirely in a 20 km-thick veil of carbon dioxide and sulphuric dioxide haze. This view shows the cloud tops of Venus as seen in ultraviolet light by the Venus Express spacecraft on 8 December 2011, from a distance of about 30 000 km. Much of the image is occupied by the planet’s southern hemisphere, with the south pole at the bottom of the frame and the equator close to the top. The visible top cloud layer seen in the image is about 70 km above the planet’s surface.

Chasing clouds on Venus

Clouds regularly punctuate Earth’s blue sky, but on Venus the clouds never part, for the planet is wrapped entirely in a 20 km-thick veil of carbon dioxide and sulphuric dioxide haze.

This view shows the cloud tops of Venus as seen in ultraviolet light by the Venus Express spacecraft on 8 December 2011, from a distance of about 30 000 km.

Much of the image is occupied by the planet’s southern hemisphere, with the south pole at the bottom of the frame and the equator close to the top. The visible top cloud layer seen in the image is about 70 km above the planet’s surface.