Space weather explosion could swallow planet Venus

Massive hot perturbations called hot flow anomalies in solar winds could swallow planet Venus, according to scientists. The hot flow anomalies in solar winds are a common space weather phenomenon outside the Earth's magnetic field which has much larger consequence for Venus as they are bigger than the entire Venus and happen many times a day.

According to Glyn Collinson, a space scientist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenblet, "Not only are they gigantic, but as Venus doesn't have a magnetic field to protect itself, the hot flow anomalies happen right on top of the planet. They could swallow the entire planet,"

The study is based on observations from the Venus Express of the European Space Agency. It shows just how large and frequent are these hot flow anomalies for the planet Venus. Venus lacks magnetosphere unlike Earth which could protect the planet from the constant streaming solar winds.

According to this study, Venus's ionosphere is the only protection from the solar winds that keeps a sensitive pressure balance between it and the solar winds but the giant hot flow anomalies could easily disrupt this balance to harm the planet. Meanwhile, Earth's magnetosphere deflects these solar winds to protect it from such massive hot flow anomalies.