Polar motion of Venus

^★ Corresponding author: pierre-louis.phan@obspm.fr

Received: 1 January 2025
Accepted: 9 May 2025

Abstract

Context. Five Venus missions are under development to study the planet in the next decade, with both NASA’s VERITAS and ESA’s EnVision featuring a geophysical investigation among their objectives. Their radar and gravity experiments will determine Venus’s orientation, enabling analyses of its spin dynamics to infer relevant geophysical and atmospheric properties.

Aims. This work aims to characterize Venus’s polar motion, defined as the motion of its spin axis in a body-fixed frame. We focus on signatures from its interior and atmosphere to support potential detections of polar motion by future orbiters.

Methods. We developed a polar motion model for a triaxial planet accounting for solar torque, centrifugal and tidal deformations of a viscoelastic mantle, and atmospheric dynamics. Core-mantle coupling effects were analyzed separately, considering a simplified spherical core. We computed the period and damping time of the free motion (i.e., the Chandler wobble) and determined the frequencies and amplitudes of the forced motion.

Results. We revisited the Chandler frequency expression. Solar torque is the dominant phenomenon affecting Venus’s Chandler frequency, increasing it by a factor of 2.75, whereas solid deformations decrease it by less than 1.5%. Our model predicts a Chandler period in the range [12 900; 18 800] years (core not fully crystallized) or [18 100; 18 900] years (core fully crystallized). The Chandler wobble appears as a linear polar drift of about 90 meters on Venus’s surface during EnVision’s four-year primary mission, at the limit of its resolution. We also predict forced polar motion oscillations with an amplitude of about 20 meters, driven by the atmosphere and the solar torque.

Conclusions. Compared to the 240 meter spin axis precession occurring in inertial space over this duration, these results suggest that Venus’s polar motion could also be detectable by future orbiters. Polar motion should be incorporated into rotation models when anticipating these missions, providing additional constraints on the interior structure of Venus.