Fact Check: 'Clearest Image Ever Taken' of Venus?

Claim:

A photograph shared widely online in late July 2024 authentically depicted the planet Venus.

Rating:

True ( About this rating? )

In late July 2024, a photograph spread on social media, allegedly showing Venus , the second planet from the Sun and the sixth largest planet. "Clearest image ever taken of Venus," one Facebook user captioned the photograph, gaining over 205,000 reactions as of this writing. "Thanks to Al," the top comment under the post, with over 2,000, likes, read. "My word, that's good art," another user commented.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1524736978116140

The image also spread on other social media platforms, such as Reddit , X , Instagram , and Threads .

The photograph truly does show Venus, so we have rated this claim as "True."

The Planetary Society shared the photograph, informing it showed "Venus' Lower Clouds" and was captured by Akatsuki spacecraft's IR2 camera.

(www.planetary.org)

The photograph's description stated that the camera's detector was "overwhelmed by the brilliance of sunlight reflecting off the daylit crescent":

Venus' Lower Clouds Akatsuki's IR2 camera relies on heat emanating from the lower atmosphere of Venus to image the nightside lower clouds. The infrared radiation originating beneath the clouds silhouettes the lowermost cloud deck, so areas of thicker cloud appear darker in this photo. At lower left, the camera's detector is overwhelmed by the brilliance of sunlight reflecting off the daylit crescent. JAXA/ISAS/DARTS/Damia Bouic

The photograph was also shared as NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day in January 2018, with the caption, "Venus at Night in Infrared from Akatsuki."

(apod.nasa.gov)

The explanation under the photograph read :

Why is Venus so different from Earth? To help find out, Japan launched the robotic Akatsuki spacecraft which entered orbit around Venus late in 2015 after an unplanned five-year adventure around the inner Solar System . Even though Akatsuki was past its original planned lifetime, the spacecraft and instruments were operating so well that much of its original mission was reinstated . Also known as the Venus Climate Orbiter, Akatsuki's instruments investigated unknowns about Earth's sister planet, including whether volcanoes are still active, whether lightning occurs in the dense atmosphere, and why wind speeds greatly exceed the planet's rotation speed. In the featured image taken by Akatsuki 's IR2 camera, Venus's night side shows a jagged-edged equatorial band of high dark clouds absorbing infrared light from hotter layers deeper in Venus' atmosphere .

"The bright orange and black stripe on the upper right is a false digital artifact that covers part of the much brighter day side of Venus ," it continued, adding that, "Analyses of Akatsuki images and data has shown that Venus has an equatorial jet similar to Earth's jet stream ."

Sources:

APOD: 2018 January 30 - Venus at Night in Infrared from Akatsuki. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180130.html . Accessed 29 July 2024.

"In Depth | Akatsuki." NASA Solar System Exploration, https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/akatsuki/in-depth . Accessed 29 July 2024.

Venus - NASA Science. https://science.nasa.gov/venus/ . Accessed 29 July 2024.

"Venus' Lower Clouds." The Planetary Society, https://www.planetary.org/space-images/venus-lower-clouds . Accessed 29 July 2024.