Images: Today's Venus weather forecast: Sulfuric acid clouds

Earth's closest neighbor was named after the Roman goddess of love, but the Venus Express spacecraft is finding out that beauty is only skin deep.

Last week, the European Space Agency (ESA) released a study of ultraviolet wavelength images taken by the Venus Monitoring Camera which was able to cut through some of the veil of clouds surrounding Venus. The study found rapidly changing weather patterns that cover large areas of the planet, which is just slightly smaller than Earth. The spacecraft also discovered massive clouds of sulfuric acid high above the planet.

This image of ultraviolet wavelengths was taken on July 8, 2008. The brighter haze is produced by sulfuric acid particles, while the composition of the dark areas is unknown.