Clouds with caramel color of Venus have fascinated people for millennia, reflecting sunlight to shine in the twilight like a morning or evening star. In 2030, NASA will analyze these clouds like never before.
The DAVINCI + mission will conduct two round-ups of brothers and sisters on Earth to snuggle in the correct position to launch a probe carrying a camera to its Texas-sized terrestrial formations through the cloud layers of Venus in the third pass. The space agency hopes to launch a new chapter in the study of Venus, adding pieces to the puzzle of whether Earth and Venus were ever more similar than they are now. In the process, he may discover whether life may have survived once – or still survives in this boiler-like environment.
Here is the background – Mankind’s first interplanetary destination was Venus, which NASA first successfully explored in 1962 with its Mariner 2 spacecraft.
Venus is a frequent first stop for probes that continue to explore the rest of the solar system since 1973. As missions to Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun use the planet to adjust course through gravity assistants, they often did quick scans of their partner. for swing dancing Venus.
But it is difficult to focus closely on this planet. Venus has too much of almost anything dangerous, boasts a rapid greenhouse effect, acid droplets in the sky, temperatures about twice as hot as a household oven and atmospheric pressure about 90 times higher than on Earth’s surface.
Its dramatic vibrations were perhaps a scientifically repulsive effect, at least compared to the many literally cooler objects the solar system offers. By one day in September 2020, Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in the United Kingdom announced the discovery of an astronomical biosignature called phosphine, puzzling the world and catapulting this bad neighbor into a much more favorable light. How can such a harsh place accept life? And if so, what does this say about the Earth, its probably shared history with Venus and our future?
What’s new – NASA has announced the DAVINCI + mission, a name that deliberately hints at the famous historical figure, known equally for his artistry and innovation.
Despite everything we’ve gathered about Venus over the last 60 years, as many space agencies have tried to explore the planet, such as former Soviet missions Venus and Vega, NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, Europe’s Venus Express spacecraft and Japan’s current orbital spacecraft. Akatsuki – there are still so many things that remain unknown.
That will change in 2029, when NASA launches its new DAVINCI + mission, reaching Venus in 2030 and 2031 to rise above and sink beneath its darkening and mysterious clouds. The future spacecraft will use a range of cameras, sensors and protective materials to create state-of-the-art images of Venus’ terrain, while helping teams determine what molecules are floating in the planet’s atmosphere.
“DAVINCI +, the deep atmosphere of Venus, noble gas research, chemistry and imaging, will bring tools to analyze the atmosphere and provide new views of Venus that will be both scientifically transformative and visually stunning,” said Stephanie Getty, Deputy Principal Investigator. of DAVINCI +, says Inverse.
Why it matters – The team outlined its ambitions in an article published May 24 in The Planetary Science Journal. They will use the DAVINCI + toolkit to answer:
- What is the origin of the atmosphere of Venus and how did it develop?
- Was there an early ocean of Venus, and if so, when and where did it go?
- How and why is Venus different from (or similar to) Earth and Mars?
- Are there signs of past processes in the morphology of the surface and the reflection?
- What are the chemical and physical processes in the clouds?
The same material probably hit the inner planets, and now that scientists have found evidence that the building blocks of life come from asteroids hitting a young Earth, it is possible that something similar happened to Venus.
“On Venus, we don’t know what part of the planet is made up of original materials from the solar system, and whether impacts from water- and ice-rich comets or asteroids have been added to the composition and evolution of Venus,” Getty said.
The study of the atmospheric composition of Venus and its terrestrial characteristics will reveal much about its history.
“Some models interpret previous measurements of [Venusian] “an atmosphere to show that Venus once had a lot of liquid water like the oceans, probably for billions of years, which would have made Venus look a lot more like Earth in the past,” Getty said. “It would be a really exciting realization – that our inner solar system was much more habitable in the past, with many ocean worlds.”
DAVINCI + will help fill these gaps in our understanding of Venus so that future generations have a baseline to look at data from this world. “However, we cannot confirm these models without improved data on the atmosphere of Venus, which will give us a fuller history of how the atmosphere of Venus was formed and how it has changed over time, and DAVINCI + will fill these gaps in our knowledge, ”Getty says.
How it works – The two DAVINCI + cameras will take pictures of the surface of Venus.
A camera will look at the night side of Venus. It is called the VISOR (Venus Imaging System for Observational Reconnaissance) tool. He will peek through the clouds to detect different types of infrared radiance on the surface, called radiance, which shows the unique characteristics of the earth.
It is attached to the Carrier Relay Imaging (CRIS) spacecraft, which will perform two springs on Venus. These maneuvers are pre-scheduled for 2030 and take place every nine months or so.
Another special camera will fall through the clouds of Venus. VenDI (Venus Descent Imager) will sink through its atmosphere into a titanium sphere, keeping the highly sensitive near-infrared camera relatively comfortable as it has access to one of the most exhausting places in the solar system.
VenDI will land near Alpha Regio, an elevated region called Tessera, which may contain clues to the ancient history of Venus. Alpha Regio should be easy enough to find the probe because it is “almost twice the size of Texas,” the study said.
The team will also take a closer look at the molecules in Venus’ atmosphere. The CUVIS instrument, short for Compact Ultraviolet to Visible Imaging Spectrometer, will fly aboard CRIS. NASA will allow it to use artificial intelligence to understand the composition of the upper clouds of Venus, possibly to reveal whether some places in its atmosphere can accommodate life.
Other DAVINCI + tools include:
- Adjustable Venus Laser Spectrometer (VTLS)
- Venus Mass Spectrometer (VMS)
- Study of the atmospheric structure of Venus (VASI)
- Oxygen fugation of Venus (VfOx)
What next – DAVINCI + will start in 2029, if everything goes according to schedule. The mission will reach Venus about six months later and fly around the planet to study its clouds. The second maneuver will follow the first in about nine months. Then, seven months after the second flight, DAVINCI + will launch its atmospheric descent probe on the third flight.
DAVANCI + will work closely with another mission, VERITAS, which will map the surface of Venus in search of volcanoes.
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