Venus Express has spied a surprisingly cold region high in the planet's atmosphere that may be frigid enough for carbon dioxide to freeze out as ice or snow.
The planet Venus is well known for its thick, carbon dioxide atmosphere and oven-hot surface, and as a result is often portrayed as Earth's inhospitable evil twin.
But in a new analysis based on five years of observations using ESA's Venus Express, scientists have uncovered a very chilly layer at temperatures of around -175ºC in the atmosphere 125 km above the planet's surface.
The curious cold layer is far frostier than any part of Earth's atmosphere, for example, despite Venus being much closer to the Sun.
To read more, click here.