Venus is hiding something very, very big. Every so often, a wave of hot air rises up from the planet's Hell-like surface and stretches across its entire diameter. The stationary gravity wave, as it's called, hovers about 40 miles (65 kilometers) above the surface in the shape of a flattened "V", rippling through the sulfuric acid clouds that Venus blows by at a chaotic and constant 220 mph. The anomaly lasts for one or two or maybe three Earth days, then it mysteriously vanishes.
Gravity waves are buoyancy waves, and should not be confused with gravitational waves.
A group of Japan-based researchers detailed the oddities of Venus' giant, stationary gravity wave in a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience. Their work implies that it's far bigger than similar waves seen on Earth and Mars, making it "perhaps the greatest ever observed in the solar system."
"It's very bizarre. It has no evident explanations," Thomas Widemann, a planetary scientist at the Paris Observatory who wasn't involved with the new study, told Business Insider. "It's a surprise for all of us."
http://www.businessinsider.com/venus-gravity-wave-akatsuki-2017-1
Simon Barton Ordinarily I do not have to look up such things but in this case I did not grow up in England.
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