The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) spacecraft completed its second Venus gravity assist maneuver (VGA2) on 26 December 2019. For a 20 minute interval surrounding closest approach, the PSP/FIELDS Radio Frequency Spectrometer (RFS) was set to ‘burst mode’, recording radio spectra from 1.3–19.2 MHz at sub-second cadence. We analyze this burst mode data, searching for signatures of radio frequency ‘sferic’ emission from lightning discharges. During the burst mode interval, only 4 spectra were observed with strong impulsive signals, and all 4 could be attributed to saturation of the RFS high gain stage by \emph{in situ} electrostatic plasma waves. These RFS measurements during VGA2 are consistent with previous non-detection of radio frequency lightning signals from Venus reported by Gurnett et al. (2001).

The solar wind is slowed, deflected, and heated as it encounters Venus's induced magnetosphere. The importance of kinetic plasma processes to these interactions has not been examined in detail, due to a lack of constraining observations. In this study, kinetic-scale electric field structures are identified in the Venusian magnetosheath, including plasma double layers. The double layers may be driven by currents or mixing of inhomogeneous plasmas near the edge of the magnetosheath. Estimated double layer spatial scales are consistent with those reported at Earth. Estimated potential drops are similar to electron temperature gradients across the bow shock. Many double layers are found in few high cadence data captures, suggesting that their amplitudes are high relative to other magnetosheath plasma waves. These are the first direct observations of plasma double layers beyond near-Earth space, supporting the idea that kinetic plasma processes are active in many space plasma environments.

In planetary bow shocks, binary particle collisions cannot mediate the conversion of upstream bulk flow energy into downstream thermal energy, and wave-particle interactions in part assume this role. Understanding the contribution of waves to shock heating requires knowledge of the modes that propagate in different classes of shocks; we describe the growth patterns of whistler waves within the Venusian bow shock. Waves with frequencies $f \lesssim 0.1 f_{ce}$, where $f_{ce}$ is the electron cyclotron frequency, preferentially grow at local minima in the background magnetic field $|B_0|$. Quasi-parallel propagating whistlers with frequencies between $0.1 f_{ce}$ and $0.3 f_{ce}$ are strongest at the downstream ramps of these $|B_0|$ minima. Immediately downstream of the shock, whistlers with frequencies $f < 0.1 f_{ce}$ propagate more than 80$^\circ{}$ oblique from $\vec{B}_0$ and have elliptically polarized $\vec{B}$ fields. A prediction from kinetic theory of the orientation of these waves’ $\vec{B}$ ellipses is confirmed to high accuracy.