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takyon writes:

Japan's Akatsuki spacecraft has detected strong winds near Venus's equator:

Japan's Akatsuki spacecraft orbiting Venus has spotted extremely strong winds near the planet's equator blowing at speeds of over 178 mph (286 km/h). The newly discovered, high-velocity winds could provide important hints about the dynamics of the Venusian atmosphere.

[...] Strong winds were imaged by Akatsuki's IR2 infrared camera in mid-2016. Using a novel automated cloud tracking method, a group of researchers led by Takeshi Horinouchi of Hokkaido University in Japan was able to distinguish winds exhibiting a maximum rotational speed near the equator. They refer to this phenomenon as the equatorial jet.

"Here we report the detection of winds at low latitude exceeding 80 meters per second using IR2 camera images from the Akatsuki orbiter taken during July and August 2016," the scientists wrote in a paper published on August 28 in Nature Geoscience [DOI: 10.1038/ngeo3016] [DX]. "The angular speed around the planetary rotation axis peaks near the equator, which we suggest is consistent with an equatorial jet, a feature that has not been observed previously in the Venusian atmosphere."

Back on Earth:

A special NASA test chamber apparatus is helping scientists explore the mysteries of Venus right here on Earth. The chamber is located at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. It is hoped that this new vessel will help prepare the space agency for missions to extreme worlds.

GEER, the Glenn Extreme Environment Rig, is a high-tech pressure vessel capable of simulating the pressure, temperature, and atmospheric gas mix of Venus, or any other extreme planetary environment, for an extended period. Engineers at the NASA Glenn Research Center where GEER is housed, as well as scientists from nearby Case Western Reserve University, recently conducted a long-duration experiment in GEER that could yield important new information about the Venus environment.

[...] Surface radar images of Venus and the resulting topographic maps show an abundance of volcanoes and lava flows on the planet's surface. [Ralph] Harvey and his graduate student Brandon Radoman-Shaw, in cooperation with researchers and engineers at NASA Glenn, conceived of an experiment in which they took a suite of minerals that represent the key minerals in basaltic volcanic rocks – pyroxene, olivine, feldspars, and others – as well as some glasses, and placed them inside the GEER chamber. There, the minerals were exposed to a high-fidelity simulation of Venus' surface conditions – not only of the physical conditions but also of the atmospheric composition as well.

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