More than three decades have passed since the publication of the last review of the Venus clouds and hazes. The paper published in 1983 in the Venus book summarized the discoveries and findings of the US Pioneer Venus and a series of Soviet Venera spacecraft (Esposito et al. in Venus, p. 484, 1983). Due to the emphasis on in-situ investigations from descent probes, those missions established the basic features of the Venus cloud system, its vertical structure, composition and microphysical properties. Since then, significant progress in understanding of the Venus clouds has been achieved due to exploitation of new observation techniques onboard Galileo and Messenger flyby spacecraft and Venus Express and Akatsuki orbiters. They included detailed investigation of the mesospheric hazes in solar and stellar occultation geometry applied in the broad spectral range from UV to thermal IR. Imaging spectroscopy in the near-IR transparency “windows” on the night side opened a new and very effective way of sounding the deep atmosphere. This technique together with near-simultaneous UV imaging enabled comprehensive study of the cloud morphology from the cloud top to its deep layers. Venus Express operated from April 2006 until December 2014 and provided a continuous data set characterizing Venus clouds and hazes over a time span of almost 14 Venus years thus enabling a detailed study of temporal and spatial variability. The polar orbit of Venus Express allowed complete latitudinal coverage. These studies are being complemented by JAXA Akatsuki orbiter that began observations in May 2016. This paper reviews the current status of our knowledge of the Venus cloud system focusing mainly on the results acquired after the Venera, Pioneer Venus and Vega missions.

中文翻译：

---

金星的云雾

自上次对金星云雾的评论发表以来，已经过去了三十多年。1983 年发表在 Venus 书中的论文总结了美国先驱者 Venus 和一系列苏联 Venera 飞船的发现和发现（Esposito et al. in Venus, p. 484, 1983）。由于强调下降探测器的原位调查，这些任务确定了金星云系统的基本特征、垂直结构、组成和微物理特性。从那时起，由于开发了伽利略和信使飞越航天器以及金星快车和 Akatsuki 轨道器上的新观测技术，对金星云的理解取得了重大进展。他们包括对太阳和恒星掩星几何学中的中间层雾度的详细研究，这些几何学应用于从紫外到热红外的宽光谱范围。夜间近红外透明“窗户”中的成像光谱开辟了一种新的非常有效的探测深层大气的方法。该技术与近乎同时的紫外线成像相结合，能够对从云顶到其深层的云形态进行全面研究。金星快车从 2006 年 4 月到 2014 年 12 月运行，提供了一个连续的数据集，描述了金星近 14 年时间跨度内的金星云和雾霾，从而能够对时间和空间变化进行详细研究。金星快车的极地轨道允许完整的纬度覆盖。