Scientists have identified a gigantic wave of poisonous gas racing across venus in an event never seen before in the solar system. The wave moves at a speed of 320 km/h around 50 kilometers above the surface. The study, led by the Japanese space agency JAXA, says this ‘atmospheric disruption’ has been happening since 1983.

The details about this phenomenon were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The wave was first spotted in the infrared images send by Venus orbiter Akatsuki, of JAXA, which probed the mid and lower layers of the atmosphere.

Intrigued by the wave of planet size proportion the researchers went on to investigate other images of Venus and found the same disruption in the infrared images taken by the Galileo National Telescope (TNG), in the Canary Islands in 2012. As of now, the scientists have concluded that this wall of acid clouds is swiping the solid globe in every five days.

“If this happened on Earth, this would be a frontal surface at the scale of the planet, and that’s incredible,” said Pedro Machado, at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal who co-authored the paper.

The research team, led by Japanese space agency Jaxa, expects that the gas wave would help in solving mysteries surrounding Venus’ mysterious greenhouse effect.