SPACE — For the first time ever, scientists are studying Venus' mysterious night side, and have found that it's vastly different from its day side. <br /> <br />It takes Venus 225 days to revolve around the sun, and 243 days to fully rotate on its axis. As a result, 'night' and 'day' on the planet last a longer time than on Earth. <br /> <br />So far, the day side has been studied extensively, but the night side has been notoriously difficult to observe, until now. <br /> <br />According to the European Space Agency, Venus' atmosphere consists of strong winds blowing 60 times faster than the planet's rotation. This super-rotation has been assumed to be uniform in both sides, but new data from the Venus Express spacecraft shows the winds are more chaotic and irregular on the night side. <br /> <br />Night side clouds formed large, wavy, filament-like patterns not seen in day clouds, and are dominated by stationary waves, which remain still and do not move with the atmosphere. <br /> <br />Stationary waves were thought to form specifically over steep, mountainous areas, but were recently detected in the planet's southern hemisphere - an area with low elevation. <br /> <br />The waves were likewise assumed to be rising up through the cloud from the surface, but were mysteriously missing from the lower and intermediate cloud levels. <br /> <br />Scientists have yet to explore what this means, but will likely need to come up with new, updated models of Venus to help them figure it out.
