dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (10/22/85)
This is the anniversary of our first peek at the surface of a world completely covered with clouds. More -- after this. October 22 The First Photo of Venus Look in the east before dawn -- and you can't mistake the planet Venus -- the brightest thing in the sky besides the sun and moon. Venus is bright partly because its orbit is right next door, and closer to the sun, just inward from Earth. But also, Venus is completely covered with clouds -- good reflectors of the light of the sun. The clouds make Venus a dazzling beacon -- now in our predawn sky. The clouds of Venus hide its surface from view. No one knew what lay beneath the Venusian clouds -- until today's date just ten years ago. Then a Soviet spacecraft called Venera 9 returned the first photograph of the surface of Venus. The craft survived only 53 minutes on the surface. The pressure there is 100 times greater than on Earth -- and temperatures are high enough to melt lead! But Venera 9 managed to transmit a single image -- black and white -- somewhat distorted -- the first look we'd ever had at the world beneath the Venusian clouds. One surprise was that we could see the surface at all. The spacecraft had been equipped with floodlights -- because Venus was expected to be eternally dark beneath its clouds. But the floodlights weren't needed. A diffuse light illuminated the surface of Venus. Also, it had been thought that there couldn't be rocks on Venus -- that rocks would be ground to sand by the harsh conditions there. But the photos came back -- showing flat rocks with sharp edges! Another surprise -- courtesy of a spacecraft. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin