A massive acid cloud wall on Venus moves at an astonishing speed of approximately 330 km/h, seemingly disappearing and reappearing randomly.
Astronomer Luigi Morrone captured images of the giant acid cloud wall on Venus from Agerola, Italy, as reported by Newsweek on July 26. This peculiar cloud structure, known as the Venus Cloud Disruption, stretches about 8,000 km, cuts across the equator, and hovers approximately 48 – 56 km above the planet’s surface. This strange formation was first discovered by Japan’s Akatsuki orbiter and has since vanished and reappeared sporadically. The last time Morrone observed it was in 2022.
Venus Cloud Disruption – the strange cloud wall moves approximately 60 times faster than the planet’s rotation. (Photo: Luigi Morrone).
The Venus Cloud Disruption is a wave-like structure moving westward. Numerous spacecraft and ground-based telescopes can observe this formation in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. It travels at a very high speed of about 330 km/h, completing a full orbit around the planet in just about 5 Earth days, significantly faster than Venus’s own rotation period of 243 days.
According to NASA, the Venus Cloud Disruption has likely existed since the 1980s. Scientists are still uncertain about the reasons behind the rapid formation and movement of this wall around the planet. “This atmospheric disruption is a new meteorological phenomenon, unlike anything observed on other planets,” said Javier Peralta, a scientist at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
This unusual wall does not always present itself; it seems to vanish and reappear randomly. “Note that this is not a fixed atmospheric phenomenon on Venus but a ‘recurring’ phenomenon (similar to El Niño or La Niña on Earth), although we still do not understand how it forms or when it becomes prominent,” Peralta explained.
Venus’s atmosphere rotates much faster than the planet itself, a phenomenon known as super-rotation. “We suspect that the Venus Cloud Disruption is a type of atmospheric wave (Kelvin wave) because it propagates faster than the super-rotating winds and seems to dissipate before reaching the cloud tops. We believe it may form somewhere beneath the clouds, transferring atmospheric momentum from Venus’s largest lake to the cloud tops, where the fastest super-rotating winds are located,” Peralta clarified.
Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System, despite not being the closest to the Sun. The average surface temperature on Venus reaches about 465 degrees Celsius. This is primarily due to its thick atmosphere, which is mostly composed of CO2, along with a layer of sulfuric acid clouds located about 48 – 64 km above the surface. Such an atmosphere means that surface pressure on Venus is incredibly high, approximately 92 times that of Earth.
