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For decades, NASA’s focus in the inner solar system
has been the exploration of Mars.
And I’m not complaining.
Since just 2000, the agency has sent four orbiters, four rovers,
and two landers to the Red Planet.
But last week, we got news that exploration in the 2030s
is going to look a little different.
NASA announced two new missions to our other planetary neighbor: Venus.
They’re part of the low-cost Discovery Program,
and they’ll help planetary scientists get a better understanding
of Venus’s geologic history and current climate.
Once upon a time, we were crazy about the idea of studying Venus,
from here, its atmosphere looked similar to Earth’s,
and that was too tasty an investigation to pass up.
However, once we went there and found blistering temperatures
and crushing pressures at the surface,
that enthusiasm cooled off and everyone switched their sights to Mars.
But now, Venus is hot stuff once more, and scientists hope that it can
help them understand why some planets are habitable, and others… not so much.
The first of the new missions is called DAVINCI+, short for the mouthful
“Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging.”
It will investigate Venus’s atmosphere for clues on how it formed
and evolved over time, including looking for evidence
as to whether Venus ever had an ocean.
Today, the planet’s surface is a scorching 471 degrees Celsius,
and its atmosphere is full of sulphuric acid clouds,
but many researchers think it may have once been much like Earth.
The presence of an ancient ocean would definitely bolster those ideas.
DAVINCI+ will be a sphere-shaped probe that parachutes down
through Venus's cloudy, acidic atmosphere.
Along the way, it will take precise measurements of noble gases
and other elements at different altitudes as it falls.
That data will give researchers a much better idea of why Venus is such a hothouse
compared to Earth, when it may have started out being a pretty similar place.
The second mission is VERITAS, which stands for
Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy.
These acronyms are getting a little out of hand...
VERITAS is going to take a look at the geologic history of Venus from orbit.
Using synthetic aperture radar, a tool for making high-resolution radar images,
this mission will peer through Venus’ opaque atmosphere to
reconstruct a 3D topographical map of the surface hiding below.
By looking at these data, researchers hope to figure out if plate tectonics
are still active on Venus, and untangle why exactly it diverged so much from Earth.
The team is also looking to map infrared emissions from the surface
to gather information on the types of rock present on Venus,
as well as to search for any active volcanoes releasing water vapor.
The teams who proposed each of these missions were
awarded around $500 million to bring their projects to life over the next decade.
NASA is aiming to launch both of these missions between 2028 and 2030,
so for all you Venus fans out there, you’re gonna need a little bit of patience.
While we wait, though, let’s talk about a mission that’s already in action.
This past Monday, NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter made a flyby of
one of the planet’s moons, and the largest in our solar system: Ganymede.
Ganymede is the only moon with its own magnetic field,
which also helps it create its very own polar aurora.
Past images have also revealed that its icy terrain appears to be scarred
and sliced into light and dark patterns,
hinting at some pretty big upheavals in its past.
Juno passed around a thousand kilometers from the moon’s surface,
the closest a spacecraft has been to Ganymede
since NASA’s Galileo spacecraft flew by in May, 2000.
As it zipped by, Juno snapped five pictures
for researchers to compare to those taken by Galileo.
Hopefully, they will reveal evidence of recent impacts on Ganymede.
But the photos are just the appetizer.
Juno also gathered data on Ganymede’s composition, ionosphere, magnetosphere,
and ice shell, as well as the radiation environment nearby.
Talk about an overachiever.
Juno’s doing amazing things.
Researchers hope that these data will shed new light
on Ganymede’s strange discolorations.
Juno also performed a radio experiment,
shooting a signal back towards Earth as it passed behind the moon.
As those waves passed through Ganymede’s ionosphere,
any changes in frequency should be picked up for analysis
by the antennas at the Deep Space Network’s Australia receiving station.
If they do manage to measure changes, researchers believe that they may be able to
understand the connection between Ganymede’s ionosphere,
its magnetic field, and the magnetic field of Jupiter.
All of this wonderful data should help scientists prepare for
upcoming missions to the Jovian system,
namely NASA’s Europa Clipper and the ESA’s JUICE mission.
They ought to be in action the same time as NASA’s new Venus missions, so the late
2020s are shaping up to be quite a busy time for solar system exploration!
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Space!
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continue to bring you space science news because you like it
and there’s gonna be a lot more of it to come,
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