1. Rheinisches Institut für Umweltforschung, Abt. Planetenforschung, Universität zu Köln, Aachener Strasse 201–209, 50931 Köln, Germany
2. Institut für Raumfahrttechnik, Universität der Bundeswehr München, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany
3. Argelander-Institut für Astronomie, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany
4. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109, USA
5. Observatoire Royal de Belgique, 3 Avenue Circulaire, 1180 Brussels, Belgium
6. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Sagamihara, Japan
7. Space, Telecommunications, and Radioscience Laboratory (MC 9515), Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4020, USA

Correspondence to: M. Pätzold¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.P. (Email: paetzold@geo.uni-koeln.de).

The atmosphere and ionosphere of Venus have been studied in the past by spacecraft with remote sensing^{1, 2, 3, 4} or in situ techniques^{3, 4}. These early missions, however, have left us with questions about, for example, the atmospheric structure in the transition region from the upper troposphere to the lower mesosphere (50–90 km) and the remarkably variable structure of the ionosphere. Observations become increasingly difficult within and below the global cloud deck (<50 km altitude), where strong absorption greatly limits the available investigative spectrum to a few infrared windows and the radio range. Here we report radio-sounding results from the first Venus Express Radio Science⁵ (VeRa) occultation season. We determine the fine structure in temperatures at upper cloud-deck altitudes, detect a distinct day–night temperature difference in the southern middle atmosphere, and track day-to-day changes in Venus' ionosphere.

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