It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
(visit the link for the full news article)
The Venus Climate Orbiter, called AKATSUKI, aims to find out why blistering winds zip around the planet at speeds of up to 400 kilometres per hour. The upper clouds can circle the planet in four days or even less, and no one knows why. The effect is called "super-rotation", because the bulk of the atmosphere is rotating much faster than the planet itself. Venus takes 243 Earth days to make one rotation.