Mysterious 5,000-mile wall of acid-filled clouds hovering over surface of Venus

Venus has been throwing up some wonders for the past few weeks. First, astronomers found two important gases - molecule phosphine and ammonia - in itsatmosphere. Now, an amateur astronomer has spotted a strange wall of acid-filled clouds on the planet. Known as the Venus Cloud Discontinuity, the wall is around 5,000 miles long. It cuts across the equator of the planet and has been spotted hovering about 30 and 35 miles above the surface.

Luigi Morrone has photographed the wall from Agerola, Italy. He clicked the picture on July 17 and said that the last time he saw it was in 2022. The discontinuity appears like a wavelike structure moving westward around the planet.

Strangely, the wall was first observed only a few years back. Japan's Venus orbiter Akatsuki spotted it as recently as 2016. However, as per NASA, the Venus Cloud Discontinuity has likely been in existence since around the 1980s. It travels around the planet at about 205 miles per hour and completes a full circuit around the planet in about five Earth days. In comparison, Venus completes one rotation in 243 Earth days, making the wall's movement way faster.

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"It has been observed on Venus since the very first nightside observations in the K-band performed in the decade of the 1980s, but we identified it for the first time using the Akatsuki/IR2 images which had a very good spatial resolution," Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA) scientist Javier Peralta, who first spotted the structure, told Newsweek.

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Peralta added that the data shows that the wall was also present on Venus during the years 2006-2008. He added that Venus is the only planet where such an "atmospheric disruption" occurs. Calling it "a new meteorological phenomenon", he says that it is "unseen on other planets".

"We're still not certain what it is," he added.

What is Venus Cloud Discontinuity?

Venus has one of the densest atmospheres and comprises a thick cloud cover containing sulfuric acid. It has a surface temperature of around 870 degrees Fahrenheit on averagecaused by the CO2 levels present in the atmosphere. Venus exhibits a phenomenon known as "super-rotation", whereby its atmosphere rotates much faster than the planet itself. Venus Cloud Discontinuity, Peralta says, might be a link between the planet's surface and its fast-moving clouds.

Due to it being a new phenomenon, Peralta says "it is yet difficult to provide a confident physical interpretation". "But we do not have doubts that its cyclical effects over the clouds' properties and distribution of atmospheric aerosols are key pieces missing to complete the complex puzzle of Venus," Peralta said in 2020 in a NASA statement.

Peralta stressed that "it's not a permanent atmospheric phenomenon on Venus, but a 'recurrent' one (like El Niño or La Niña on the Earth), though we don't know yet how it is produced or when it will be visible".