{"id":770,"date":"2012-06-12T09:48:03","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T09:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=770"},"modified":"2012-06-12T09:48:03","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T09:48:03","slug":"probing-venusian-atmosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/probing-venusian-atmosphere\/","title":{"rendered":"Probing the Venusian Atmosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forty-five years ago today — June 12, 1967 — the Soviet Union launched Venera 4 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(Venera 4. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nVenera 4<\/a> was designed to conduct “direct atmospheric studies” of Venus.<\/p>\n

On October 18, 1967, the spacecraft entered the Venusian atmosphere and released two thermometers, a barometer, a radio altimeter, and atmospheric density gauge, 11 gas analyzers, and two radio transmitters operating in the DM waveband. The main bus, which had carried the capsule to Venus, carried a magnetometer, cosmic ray detectors, hydrogen and oxygen indicators, and charged particle traps. Signals were returned by the spacecraft, which braked and then deployed a parachute system after entering the Venusian atmosphere, until it reached an altitude of 24.96 km.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nThe Venera 4 Wikipedia page<\/a> includes some fascinating details about the capsule’s design and test regimen, and notes that Venera 4 successfully measured Venus’s atmosphere to be made up of 90-93% carbon dioxide, 0.4-0.8% oxygen, 7% nitrogen and 0.1-1.6% water vapor.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty-five years ago today — June 12, 1967 — the Soviet Union launched Venera 4 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. (Venera 4. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.) Venera 4 was designed to conduct “direct atmospheric studies” of Venus. On October 18, 1967, the spacecraft entered the Venusian atmosphere \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[26,11,120],"class_list":["post-770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","tag-launch","tag-space-history","tag-venus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}