NASA is planning two missions to Venus – the first exhibitions in more than 30 years – to study the planet’s atmosphere.
Venus is Earth’s closest planetary neighbour and is often dubbed our sister planet.
NASA wants to explore this relationship with the visits in 2028 and 2030. It believes Venus has plate tectonics, just like Earth, and understands the surface of Venus bakes at 880F (471C), hot enough to melt lead.
“We’re revving up our planetary science program with intense exploration of a world that NASA hasn’t visited in over 30 years,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associated administrator for science, said today.
(Image: Reuters)
The US space agency said it was awarding about $500 million (£350 million) for development of each of the two missions.
The first of these has been dubbed DAVINCI+ (short for Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry and Imaging) and the second is called VERITAS (an acronym for Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy).
DAVINCI+ will measure the composition of the dense Venusian atmosphere, seeking to improve understanding of how it evolved, while VERITAS will map the planet’s surface from orbit to help determine its geological history and why it developed so
differently than Earth, NASA said.
DAVINCI+, consisting of an orbiter and an atmospheric descent probe, is also expected to return the first high-resolution images of unique geological characteristics on Venus called “tesserae.” Scientists believe those features may be comparable to Earth’s continents and suggest that Venus has plate tectonics, according to NASA’s announcement.
(Image: Bill Ingalls/NASA/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
As the second planet from the sun, Venus is similar in structure but slightly smaller than Earth, with a diameter of about 7,500 miles (12,000 km).
Above its foreboding landscape lies a thick, toxic atmosphere consisting primarily of carbon dioxide, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets. The consequence is a runaway greenhouse effect, NASA understands.
Venus has lately received less scientific attention than Mars, Earth’s next-closest planetary next-door neighbour. However, in 1990, NASA’s Magellan spacecraft reached Venus and made the first global map of the Venusian surface.
In 1994, the Magellan spacecraft was sent to plunge into the surface of Venus to gather data on its atmosphere before it ceased operations.