Ozone layer found on Venus!

Scientists have revealed that they have been able to show that the planet Venus contains an ozone layer in its atmosphere! This revelation means that the planet shares this distinction with our own planet and the planet Mars!! You can read more about this discovery by reading the article. "Ozone layer found on Venus" which is at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news website: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/10/06/science-ozone-layer-venus.html

From the article:


"Franck Montmessin, an atmospheric scientist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France, said in a statement that researchers were actually looking for other molecules in Venus's atmosphere when they noticed the strong ozone signature in some of their plots. That prompted them to go back and search for it in other scans."
"This ozone detection tells us a lot about the circulation and the chemistry of Venus' atmosphere," says Håkan Svedhem, ESA project scientist for the Venus Express mission in a statement"

Isn't it amazing how many scientific discoveries are made by accident (as this discovery apparently was!!)??

To read more articles (which are more scientific in nature than the above-mentioned article), please click on the following links:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21021-venus-has-an-ozone-layer-too.html

http://www.ecnmag.com/News/2011/10/Europe/ESA-Venus-ozone-layer/

To develop a better understanding of the purpose of an ozone layer (as it applies to the Earth) and its functioning, please visit the following  websites by clicking on their links:

http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_is_the_ozone_layer.htm

http://www.oar.noaa.gov/climate/t_ozonelayer.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer

"The photochemical mechanisms that give rise to the ozone layer were discovered by the British physicist Sidney Chapman in 1930. Ozone in the Earth's stratosphere is created by ultraviolet light striking oxygen molecules containing two oxygen atoms (O₂), splitting them into individual oxygen atoms (atomic oxygen); the atomic oxygen then combines with unbroken O₂ to create ozone, O_3." 


Of course unless proved otherwise, this scientific finding regarding Venus possessing an ozone layer in its atmosphere  tells us that there is oxygen in the atmosphere of Venus!!


To learn more about the atmosphere of Venus and other planets please visit the following websites:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus

http://www.windows2universe.org/venus/atmosphere.html

http://230nsc1.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Solar/venusenv.html

http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/earth.html


Here is a video which discusses the Atmosphere of Venus:
 

Source of video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnZcIqLrRLA

Source of image:http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/venus-unveiled/