For the first time, grabbing extraterrestrial rainbow effects

For the first time, astronomers have captured images of a rainbow effect on another, extraterrestrial planet.

The European Space Agency (ESA) said that the "rainbow effect" or "halo " phenomenon also appears on Venus, but unlike Earth it is created in the atmosphere containing droplets. High in sulfuric acid.

The halo image on Venus is taken by ESA's Venus Express spacecraft.(Photo: ESA)

According to experts, rainbows and halo appear when sunlight illuminates cloud droplets, in the case of the Earth are water droplets. While rainbows curl an arc into a wide band in the sky, the halo is usually much smaller and consists of a series of colorful concentric circles around a light-colored core.

The halo is only visible when the person looks at the straight position between the Sun and the clouds reflecting sunlight. On Earth, people often see them from the plane, around the shadow of an airplane above the clouds below or around the shadows of climbers on misty peaks.

The birth of an aura requires two characteristics: spherical cloud droplets (most likely, liquid droplets) and they have the same size.

Simulation of halo on Venus (left) and on Earth (right).(Photo: ESA)

Venus's atmosphere is thought to be full of drops of sulfuric acid . By capturing images of clouds that are sunlit directly behind the Venus Express spacecraft, astronomers have "snapped up" the close-up of the optical goods that appear on Venus, away from the surface of the planet. this is about 70km. This halo has a width of about 1,200km when viewed from the spacecraft 6,000km away.

From what was observed, astronomers estimated that Venus's droplets were about 1.2 micrometres wide, which is equivalent to 1/50 of the width of a human hair.

The change in brightness of the concentric rings of the observed halo is very different from that obtained from clouds containing only a mixture of sulfur and water. This reveals, in the chemical composition of the cloud, there may be other compounds.