Venus Smiled, With a Mysterious Wave Across Its Atmosphere

For a few days, Venus smiled — sideways. When Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft pulled into orbit around Venus in December 2015 and turned on its instruments, it almost immediately discovered a bow-shape feature in the atmosphere stretching 6,000 miles, almost pole to pole — a sideways smile. More remarkably, while Venus’s winds blow at speeds up to 250 miles per…

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