30-mile-high clouds of acid on Venus are made by the largest 'hydraulic jump' in the solar system

A monstrous bank of cloud 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) long that sweeps around Venus every few days is being generated by rising sulfuric acid vapor pushed high into the atmosphere by what is essentially the same phenomenon that describes how water from a running tap spreads out in the basin of your kitchen sink. In 2016, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)'s Akatsuki mission to Venus discovered the bank of clouds some 31 miles (50 km) up in Venus' dense Venus' dense atmosphere . The weather system is aligned with the planet's equator, but scientists have been unable to explain its immense size, velocity and its noticeably sharp leading edge. The mystery has, however, only lasted ten years. By creating mathematical models that describe the dynamical flow of gas and how pockets of gas rise, an international team of astronomers has now worked out the source of this huge atmospheric phenomenon. The answer is something called a "hydraulic jump," which occurs when a gas or fluid that is shallow but fast moving suddenly slows while becoming deeper. An everyday example is water flowing out from a tap into the basin of your kitchen sink; where it strikes the bottom of the basin, it is initially shallow but fast moving, but as the water spreads out it rapidly becomes deep and slower. …