J. A. Dias, P. Machado, S. Robert, J. Erwin, M. Lefèvre, C. F. Wilson, D. Quirino, J. C. Duarte
Abstract
Venus is home to thousands of volcanoes, with a wide range of volumes and sizes. Its surface is relatively young, with a temperature of approximately 735 K and an atmosphere of 92 bar. Past and possible ongoing volcanic outgassing is expected to provide a source to the sustenance of this massive atmosphere, dominated by CO2 and SO2. The lower atmosphere can be investigated in the near-infrared transparency windows on the nightside, such as the 2.3 mu m thermal emission window, which provides a chance of detection of species with volcanic origin, such as water vapor. The Planetary Spectrum Generator was used to simulate the nightside 2.3 mu m thermal emission window of Venus. We simulated the effect of a volcanic gas plume rising to a ceiling altitude, for species such as H2O, CO, OCS, HF and SO2. The sensitivity of the radiance spectrum at different wavelengths was explored as an attempt to qualitatively access detection for future measurements of both ground-based and space-instrumentation. We conclude from our qualitative analysis that for the H2O, CO and OCS plumes simulated there is potential to achieve a detection in the future, given a minimum required signal-to-noise ratio of 50. For SO2 and HF plumes, a higher signal-to-noise ratio would be needed.
Keywords
Venus / Volcano / Water plume / Radiative transfer / Atmosphere
Icarus
Volume 438, Number 116589
2025 May
