Two New Missions To Venus: NASA:
The last US probe to visit the planet was the Magellan orbiter in 1990.
- Now, NASA has announced two new missions to Venus. These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world, capable of melting lead at the surface. These include:
1. Davinci+:
- The Davinci+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission will:
- Measure the planet’s atmosphere to gain insight into how it formed and evolved.
- Determine whether Venus ever had an ocean.
- Return the first high-resolution images of the planet’s “tesserae” geological features (These features could be comparable to continents on Earth).
2. Veritas (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy):
- This mission will map the planet’s surface to understand its geological history and investigate how it developed so differently than Earth.
- It will use a form of radar to chart surface elevations and discover whether volcanoes and earthquakes are still happening.
