Researchers survey planet-sized space weather explosions at Venus

February 22, 2014

Space scientists located on three continents have published a survey of hot flow anomalies (HFAs) observed at the of Venus, in  on Tuesday. HFAs, discontinuities in the, were found to have much larger repercussions for Venus than for.

While the common HFA phenomenon is deflected by the Earth's, Venus does not have such a reliable protection against the constant solar wind. Venus's is generally in a sensitive  with the outside  from the solar wind, and is regularly disrupted by the anomalies.

The survey was conducted using data collected during roughly three Venusian days (about two Earth years) by the European Space Agency's, expanding on an initial case study of a HFA at Venus published in 2012. "Not only are they gigantic," said Glyn Collinson of NASA, the first author of the papers published in 2012 and 2014, "[b]ut as Venus doesn’t have a magnetic field to protect itself, the hot flow anomalies happen right on top of the planet. They could swallow the planet whole." Seven events were observed during the surveyed time.