Europe To Launch A Probe To Study Venus From The Core To The Atmosphere
The United States will send robotic space missions to Venus for the first time in almost 30 years. Interest in the planet is driven by the search for evidence of life there. In 2020, scientists using telescopes found molecules in the atmosphere of Venus that could be waste products from living organisms.
NASA will send two robotic space missions to Venus by the end of the decade. This will happen for the first time in almost three decades, The New York Times reports, citing National Aeronautics and Space Administration Administrator Bill Nelson.
The orbital Venus probe EnVision will for the first time study the structure of this planet from the core to the surface and its entire atmosphere. This will be done by radars and spectrometers. The accuracy of recognizing structures on the surface of Venus will be about 10 m, which is about 10 times higher than before. By studying the geology of Venus, its tectonic activity, the chemical composition of the atmosphere and surface, as well as traces of meteorite and asteroid activity in the past, scientists expect to understand its history. And this is not a purely academic interest. The more we know about the evolution of planets, the better we will understand the evolution of the Earth – past and future. By and large, this is a matter of human survival.
“What makes EnVision special is the mission’s approach to studying the entire planet as a system. It will examine the surface, internal structure and atmosphere of Venus with unprecedented precision, allowing us to understand how they work and interact with each other. For example, EnVision will use multiple measurement methods to look for signs of active volcanism on the surface and in the atmosphere,” explained Anne Grete Straume-Lindner, mission scientist.
The European probe will not fly to Venus alone. Around the same time, NASA expects to launch automatic research probes DAVINCI and VERITAS to the Morning Star.
