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- All Subjects: Planetary Science
- Creators: Robinson, Mark
Lightning in the atmosphere of Venus is either ubiquitous, rare, or non-existent, depending on how one interprets diverse observations. Quantifying if, when, or where lightning occurs would provide novel information about Venus’s atmospheric dynamics and chemistry. Lightning is also a potential risk to future missions, which could float in the cloud layers (~50–70 km above the surface) for up to an Earth-year. For decades, spacecraft and ground-based telescopes have searched for lightning at Venus, using many instruments including magnetometers, radios, and optical cameras. Two surveys (from the Akatsuki orbiter and the 61-inch telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona) observed several optical flashes that are often attributed to lightning. We expect that lightning at Venus is bright near 777 nm (the unresolved triplet emission lines of excited atomic oxygen) due to the high abundance of oxygen as carbon dioxide. However, meteor fireballs at Venus are probably bright at the same wavelength for the same reason. Here we derive power laws that quantify the rate and brightness of optical flashes from meteor fireballs at Venus. We calculated that meteor fireballs are statistically likely to cause bright optical flashes at rates that are consistent with published observations. Small meteors burn up at altitudes of ~100 km, roughly twice as high above the surface as the clouds. Therefore, we conclude that there is no concrete evidence that lightning strikes would be a hazard to missions that pass through or dwell within the clouds of Venus.
First, I mapped microfeatures across four of Europa’s RegMaps and validated them against other mapping datasets. Microchaos features are the most numerous, followed by pits, domes, then hybrids. Spots are the least common features, and the smallest. Next, I mapped features in low-resolution images that covered the E15RegMap01 area to determine error rates and sources of omission or misclassification for features mapped in low-resolution images. Of all features originally mapped in the RegMap, pits and domes were the least likely to be re-mapped or positively identified (24.2% and 5%, respectively). Chaos, spots, and hybrids were accurately classified over 70% of the time. Quantitatively classifying these features using discriminant function analysis yielded comparable values of accuracy when compared to a human mapper. Finally, nearest-neighbor clustering analyses were used to show that pits are clustered in all regions, while chaos, domes, and hybrids vary in terms of their spatial clustering.
This work suggests that the most likely processes for microfeature formations is either the evolution of liquid water sills within Europa’s ice shell or cryovolcanism. Future work extending to more areas outside of the RegMaps can further refine microfeature formation models. The detection of liquid water at or near the surface is a major goal of multiple upcoming Europa missions; this work provides predictions that can be directly tested by these missions to maximize their scientific return.
