Russell C T, Zhang T L, Delva M, Magnes W, Strangeway R J, Wei H Y
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1567, USA.
Nature. 2007 Nov 29;450(7170):661-2. doi: 10.1038/nature05930.
The occurrence of lightning in a planetary atmosphere enables chemical processes to take place that would not occur under standard temperatures and pressures. Although much evidence has been reported for lightning on Venus, some searches have been negative and the existence of lightning has remained controversial. A definitive detection would be the confirmation of electromagnetic, whistler-mode waves propagating from the atmosphere to the ionosphere. Here we report observations of Venus' ionosphere that reveal strong, circularly polarized, electromagnetic waves with frequencies near 100 Hz. The waves appear as bursts of radiation lasting 0.25 to 0.5 s, and have the expected properties of whistler-mode signals generated by lightning discharges in Venus' clouds.
行星大气中闪电的出现能够引发一些在标准温度和压力条件下不会发生的化学过程。尽管已有大量关于金星上闪电的证据报道，但一些探测结果为阴性，因此闪电的存在仍存在争议。一个确定性的探测结果将是确认从大气传播到电离层的电磁哨声波。在此，我们报告对金星电离层的观测结果，这些观测揭示了频率接近100赫兹的强烈圆极化电磁波。这些波表现为持续0.25至0.5秒的辐射爆发，并且具有金星云层中闪电放电产生的哨声模式信号的预期特性。
