NASA designed the Parker Solar Probe to study the sun. However, the spacecraft has also managed to capture a series of first-of-their-kind images of Venus. The images feature the surface of Venus in visible light. A first for NASA. Parker captured the photos using its Wide-Field Imager (WISPR). The images were snapped during two gravity-assisted flybys in July 2020 and February 2021.
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What’s most remarkable about the images is that this is the first time we’ve seen the surface from space without the use of radar beams. Back in the 1990s, NASA’s Magellan mission probed the planet. The agency used radar beams to create the first global maps of the planet. Later, JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft made it through the cover using infrared images. The Soviet Venera landers managed to transfer some images of the surface in visible light in the 70s, but this is the first time we’ve managed to capture new images of the planet’s surface in visible light.
Read more: BGR
