【英语时差8,16】金星在黑暗中闪光（在线收听）

When the sun’s ultraviolet light hits Venus’ atmosphere, it breaks up large molecules into fragments. As those atoms recombine later, some of their energy is released as light. If they recombine on Venus’ night side in large enough amounts, the glow can be detected. So far, scientists have found nitric oxide, oxygen, and hydroxyl radicals glowing at altitudes between 55 and 75 miles. So, if I had a big telescope and looked at Venus’ dark side, I’d be able to see it glowing? Well, no. The glow is in the infrared, a part of the light spectrum human eyes can’t see. But we’re lucky that we have Venus Express, a European spacecraft with VIRTIS, out there watching. VIRTIS? That's a Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrophotometer. It can see infrared. If we can't see it, what's the point? Scientists are using the data to learn about the temperature, the wind direction, and the composition of Venus’ atmosphere. But they don’t understand everything. Sometimes different molecules glow simultaneously, other times separately. They haven’t figured out why the glows happen when they do.