section_path: Extraterrestrial
section_name: Extraterrestrial
paragraph_text: Extraterrestrial
  
  Cloud cover has been seen on most other planets in the Solar System. Venus 's thick clouds are composed of sulfur dioxide (due to volcanic activity) and appear to be almost entirely stratiform. They are arranged in three main layers at altitudes of 45 to 65 km that obscure the planet 's surface and can produce virga. No embedded cumuliform types have been identified, but broken stratocumuliform wave formations are sometimes seen in the top layer that reveal more continuous layer clouds underneath. On Mars, noctilucent, cirrus, cirrocumulus and stratocumulus composed of water-ice have been detected mostly near the poles. Water-ice fogs have also been detected on Mars.
  
  Both Jupiter and Saturn have an outer cirriform cloud deck composed of ammonia, an intermediate stratiform haze-cloud layer made of ammonium hydrosulfide, and an inner deck of cumulus water clouds. Embedded cumulonimbus are known to exist near the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. The same category-types can be found covering Uranus and Neptune, but are all composed of methane. Saturn's moon Titan has cirrus clouds believed to be composed largely of methane. The Cassini–Huygens Saturn mission uncovered evidence of polar stratospheric clouds and a methane cycle on Titan, including lakes near the poles and fluvial channels on the surface of the moon.
  
  Some planets outside the Solar System are known to have atmospheric clouds. In October 2013, the detection of high altitude optically thick clouds in the atmosphere of exoplanet Kepler-7b was announced, and, in December 2013, in the atmospheres of GJ 436 b and GJ 1214 b.