If you could hop in a spaceship...
If you just park just over there.
..and pick any planet in our solar system to be your new home...
(EXCLAIMS) Oh, no, that's OK.
It's a bit rocky.
..it probably wouldn't be this one, to be honest.
Now, this next planet is...um...
..Venus!
Oooh! Oh, lovely.
Yes, Venus.
(EXCLAIMS ANIMATEDLY)
Yeah, you're right, it is actually very close to Earth.
So just 237 million Ks away,
So just a hop, skip and a jump, really.
Uh-huh!
You can even spot Venus from Earth,
because it's the third brightest object in our sky
after the sun and moon, of course.
Now, Venus is a lot like Earth.
(CHEERS)
Yeah, it is similar in its geology,
its size and its distance from the sun.
But it's also a bit different.
I should warn you it does get a little balmy here.
The surface gets to more than 470 degrees.
Oh!
Yeah, Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system
thanks to its super thick atmosphere
that traps in heat
and exerts a similar pressure
to being about 800 metres underwater.
Yikes!
It's also made mostly of carbon dioxide,
so we humans couldn't breathe here.
But I'm not sure what you breathe, so you might like it.
Uh-uh.
Scientists reckon it's covered with craters, mountains
and possibly active volcanoes and big plains of red-hot lava.
Lovely.
Oh, and did I mention that when it rains, it rains sulphuric acid?
No?
Well, that too.
While this charming planet isn't the most homely one,
at least for us humans, it is one we want to know more about
and over the years we've tried.
Unfortunately, thanks to Venus's atmosphere,
probes don't last all that long on the surface.
The current world record is held by a Soviet spacecraft in 1982,
which lasted just over two hours.
But now NASA is giving it another shot
for the first time in more than 30 years.
It's announced two unmanned missions to Venus
starting in 2028 - DAVINCI+ and VERITAS.
VERITAS will send an orbiter to map the planet in more detail
than ever before
while DAVINCI+ will drop a probe through the planet's thick clouds
to explore its atmosphere before landing on the surface.
It will measure the make-up of the planet
to understand how it's formed
and work out if Venus ever had an ocean.
Oh!
Oh! No, sorry.
If it was there, it's not there anymore.
Oh.
NASA says our Earth-like neighbour will also teach us more about Earth.
We hope these missions will further our understanding
of how Earth evolved and why it's currently habitable
when others in our solar system are not.
And there's another thing -
the missions will help us find out if anything ever lived on Venus,
or if it still does.
Now, I have some reviews here. I know you like reviews.
Now, NASA described it as "hot, hellish and unforgiving".
(EXCLAIMS)
OK, there's no need to use that kind of language.
(COMPLAINS)
We've talked about this - Earth is out of your price range,
but if you want to go back around to Mars,
we could take a second look or even...
..Pluto. Pluto is very, very affordable, cheap even.
It's very cold, though.
Oh.
We'll just...see how we go.
Difficult.