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Of all the planets in the inner solar system
perhaps none have proved more puzzling to scientists on Earth than Venus.
On close examination we see that almost nothing about the planet makes sense
from a conventional viewpoint.
From the extraordinary movements of Venus's atmosphere
at speeds up to 60 times faster than the planet's rotation
to its extraordinary super bolts of lightning
vastly more powerful and prolific than lightning on Earth
to its super hot temperatures, well over 800º F
hot enough at the planet's surface to melt lead,
to the mysterious vortices seen wandering at the planet's poles
to its vast stringy cometary tail
stretching for millions of miles sometimes even touching the Earth's orbit.
Countless unresolved mysteries on Venus demand entirely new theoretical pathways.
A scientific paper published this year in Nature Astronomy only deepens the mysteries.
A team analyzing data from the ESA's Venus Express mission
have discovered a mystery in the darkness of Venus's nightside atmosphere.
Of course, the planet's forementioned superfast winds
have long been a puzzle for planetary scientists.
Lead author astrophysicist Javier Peralta says of the enduring mystery,
"We've spent decades studying the super-rotating winds
by tracking how the upper clouds move on Venus's dayside
- these are clearly visible in images acquired in ultraviolet light.
However, our models of Venus remain unable to reproduce this super-rotation,
which clearly indicates that we might be missing some pieces of this puzzle."
Using the visible and infrared thermal imaging spectrometer
or VIRTIS instrument,
the team gained new insights into what happens to these winds on the planet's night side
which remains hidden in darkness for hundreds of days.
They found that Venus's tremendous baffling winds
are even "more chaotic" on its night side than on its day side.
They had expected just the opposite.
As described on Sciencealert.com
"Existing models of the atmosphere have predicted super-rotation
largely occurred the same way on both Venus's day and night sides,
but the new infrared perspective shows the whirling Venusian winds
are actually more irregular and chaotic when hidden from the Sun."
As seen in this image, the most puzzling feature to the scientists
is the filamentary patterns seen in these clouds
which are not seen on the planet's day side.
The team characterizes the phenomena as essentially a type of gravity waves
in this case what they refer to as stationary waves.
One of the researchers states,
"Stationary waves are probably what we'd call gravity waves
- in other words, rising waves generated lower in Venus's atmosphere
that appear not to move with the planet's rotation.
These waves are concentrated over steep, mountainous areas of Venus;
this suggests that the planet's topography
is affecting what happens way up above in the clouds."
However, the scientists are forced to acknowledge some of the problems with this theory.
As the Sciencealert article states,
"VIRTIS observed areas in Venus's southern hemisphere,
which is generally low in elevation,
but the team says gravity waves still influence the atmospheric movements
- but strangely enough, there was no evidence of them in the lower cloud levels,
up to 50 kilometers above the surface."
Team member Ricardo Hueso states,
"It's an unexpected result for sure,
and we'll all need to revisit our models of Venus to explore its meaning."
From the Electric Universe perspective, the striking filamentary clouds
are simply due to electric currents in the Venusian ionosphere.
It has long been known that the solar wind interacts directly with the ionosphere
and of course filaments are the forms we see
when electric currents travel through plasmas.
The concentration of the filamentary clouds
on high mountain tops is also a
prediction of the electrical interpretation.
For many years planetary scientists have sought to explain
the bright mountaintops of Venus which reflect radar signals.
Some scientists have proposed that the mountains are covered by a "heavy metal frost".
However, in 2003
physicist Wal Thornhill wrote in an article on his website Holoscience.com
"A much simpler answer is that diffuse electric discharge,
known on Earth as 'St. Elmo's fire,'
occurs preferentially at the higher altitudes of the mountains on Venus.
In that thick atmosphere it forms a highly conductive dense plasma,
which is a superb reflector of radar signals."
The difference between the day and night side phenomena on Venus
may be due to the comet- like electrical interaction
feeding Birkeland currents into the planets so-called magnetotail.
Magnetic turbulence on the night side
can then be the effect driving the chaotic winds.
In the Electric Universe view of Venus
it is not a coincidence that Venus today shows such similarities to a comet.
In fact, following the hypothesis that was first proposed by Immanuel Velikovsky
in his book 'Worlds in Collision',
it has always been the position of the chief principals of the Thunderbolts Project
that Venus once appeared in the earthly sky as a terrifying comet.
Before the earliest space probes imaged the surface of Venus
a number of scientists, most notably
Fred Whipple, the originator of the dirty snowball hypothesis,
had predicted that Venus would be covered with oceans.
Instead, of course, Venus is extraordinarily hot and dry
and its surface is blanketed with networks of filamentary scars
matching the form of so-called Lichtenberg patterns produced by electrical discharge.
Today Venus has a much more direct electrical connection to the Sun than the earth
and it is this relationship that holds the key
to understanding its bizarre atmospheric and weather phenomena.
As mentioned, the predictions of the Electric Universe for Venus
are much different than those of standard planetary science.
In 2005, physicist Wal Thornhill offered such a radical prediction
in his analysis of the North Polar vortex on Venus.
Professor Ross Taylor said of the vortexes discovery,
"...the absence of viable theories which can be tested,
or in this case any theory at all,
leaves us uncomfortably in doubt as to our basic ability to understand
even gross features of planetary atmospheric circulations."
It was Thornhill's position that such vortices
would inevitably be found at both poles of the planet
though only the one at the North Pole had been observed at the time.
He wrote,
"We should expect to see evidence of the twisted-pair configuration at the poles of Venus,
if the input current is sufficiently strong and this model is correct...
The Venusian polar dipole shows the precise configuration and motion
of Birkeland current pairs in plasma discharge experiments.
That includes a surrounding spiral vortex."
In 2006, scientists indeed found a similar vortex at the South Pole of Venus.
As we see in these images,
it appears stunningly similar to twin current filaments
studied in laboratories on Earth.
But as Thornhill noted,
"...there was no reason, other than an appeal to symmetry,
for scientists to expect a similar vortex at the South Pole of Venus."
Thornhill explained that the mysterious polar vortices
and Venus's super-fast winds share the same source,
incoming electrical currents from the Sun.
He wrote,
"Venus Express science team members say they want to know
how these vortices remain stable and where they get their energy.
This goes to the heart of what drives the super-rotating upper atmosphere of Venus...
Venus, as shown by its cometary plasmasphere,
is still discharging strongly to the solar plasma.
The enhanced infrared emissions seen from the polar dipole
is due to the dissipation of electrical energy in the upper atmosphere of Venus.
The polar dipole has a variable rotation rate
and it varies the position of its axis of rotation with respect to that of the planet.
It was observed to move 500 km from the Venusian pole in less than a day
and return just as quickly.
The variable nature of the electrical input to Venus via the Sun
and the snaking about of the Birkeland currents explained both these characteristics."
However, in 2005 Thornhill offered a similar outrageous prediction
on the planet Saturn, that science discovery also confirmed.
In his analysis of the warm polar vortex discovered at Saturn's South Pole
Thornhill wrote,
"The Electric Universe also predicts, experimentum crucis,
that both poles should be hot,
not one hot and the other cold."
In 2008, the Cassini spacecraft confirmed the astonishing prediction,
astonishing because the freezing cold North Pole
had been deprived of sunlight for more than 12 years.
The author of a paper on the discovery stated,
"We didn't expect it to have a hot spot at the north."
Electric currents from an electric Sun
connect it to planets and (are) driving atmospheric and weather phenomena.
How many enduring mysteries will be resolved
when planetary scientists finally recognize these simple and logical concepts?