Venus is surprisingly similar to Earth, so much so, that it’s often called our ‘Evil Twin’.
Venus was even the first place we ever tried to explore outside our own planet, becoming
the subject of the first successful interplanetary probe in 1962, launched by the U.S.
So why haven’t we been to Venus yet, and why does it get so neglected these days in favor
of the golden child, Mars?
During the early exploratory probe missions to Venus from the 60s through to the early 90s,
scientists discovered that Venus is extremely hot, the pressure is bone-crushing, the winds
are hurricane strength on the regular, and its atmosphere is horrendously poisonous.
It’s almost Earth’s twin in size, mass, and what the planet itself is made out of,
and recent research has made compelling cases for the idea that Venus was pretty much
like Earth.
But that was before something went terribly wrong and Venus went full-on goth kid toxic and
we don’t really know why.
Delving into how similar Venus could have been to Earth, and how we’ve diverged so
dramatically since, is one reason why interest in exploring Venus is picking back up again.
See, Venus stopped being a viable target for planetary study when scientists realized that it was
not a good contender for future human habitation despite being our closest neighbor, and that
its extreme conditions would make it horribly difficult to study with our Earth-made instruments.
I mean can you imagine the rover we would have to build to be able to withstand Venus’s rainshowers
of sulfuric acid?
But if its dark-side similarity to Earth and the possibility that it had life-sustaining
oceans for billions of years weren’t enough to warrant a renewed push to explore it, Venus
is also interesting because of the possibility that it may have plate tectonics: not all
planets have plate tectonics, where the pieces of the top layer of the crust shift around
and move against one another.
And scientists think plate tectonics may be crucial for making planets habitable—researchers
think that plate tectonics may play a role in keeping the climate from becoming too extreme
in either direction, sort of evening out the temperature highs and lows by cycling carbon
dioxide between the deep core of the planet and the atmosphere over millions of years.
So studying Venus’ topography could clue us in on the planet’s geologic history and
give us more insight into how potentially habitable or once-habitable planets behave.
Between that, its crazy atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, the double dose
of solar radiation it receives as our next closest neighbor to the sun, all make it a
tantalizing research subject and a great test planet for seeing what exoplanets might
be like.
As we push farther into the reaches of space, we’re looking for potentially habitable
or life-sustaining planets beyond our solar system, and Venus is starting to look like
it might be quite similar to those.
So the more we understand about Venus, the more we may know about other planets beyond our
solar system too!
So when are we going to get out there and say hi?
The Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, has an orbiter launch scheduled for
2023, and although the project has been kept heavily under wraps, we do know that the orbiter will be loaded
with sensors and hopes to map the planet through its thick, opaque atmosphere using radar.
NASA planetary scientists also hope they can get a mission to Venus off the ground by 2025,
and the European Space Agency has plans to send an orbiter in 2032.
Sending a lander to this harsh planet will probably take a little more time, with a joint
Russian-American collaboration hoping to send an orbiter and a lander sometime between 2026
and 2033.
So while Venus is finally getting the attention she deserves again, her secrets may help us
unlock not only our past here on Earth and how life came to be on our planet, but also
what the future for planets similar to Venus, like Earth—could look like under dramatic
circumstances.
And helps us know what we’re looking for and what we might find when we’re looking
for life on other planets, too.
Pretty worthwhile endeavor, if you ask me.
Are you guys interested in seeing us cover ISRO’s attempt to study Venus in more detail?
Let us know in the comments below.
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