NASA Announces Two New Missions, This Time to Venus

NASA’s next two missions of exploration will be to planet Venus; learn more…

Friday, 4th June 2021

NASA has announced on Wednesday its plans to send two new missions to Venus by the end of this decade.

The US space agency said the aim of these missions, each of which has been awarded funding of $500 million, will be to study the sister planet's atmosphere and geological features.

The last time a US probe- the Magellan orbiter, visited the neighboring planet was in 1990. According to NASA administrator Bill Nelson, these missions would provide a "chance to investigate a planet we haven't been to in more than 30 years". Since then, there have been other European and Japanese spacecraft that have orbited Venus.

Also Read: NASA Shares Striking Image of Galaxy Cluster.

Nelson said, "These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world, capable of melting lead at the surface."

The second planet from the Sun, Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system with a surface temperature of 500C.

The Davinci+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission will be tasked with measuring the planet's atmosphere that will in turn give researchers an idea of how it formed and evolved. The other attempt at understanding whether Venus ever had an ocean.

Veritas (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy), the second mission, will be launched to map the planet's surface so as to get an insight into its geological history. It will also investigate how it came to be so distinct from planet Earth.

The mission will make use of a form of radar that will help chart surface elevations and thus determine whether it still experiences volcanoes and earthquakes.

Tom Wagner from Nasa's Planetary Science Division said, "It is astounding how little we know about Venus, but the combined results of these missions will tell us about the planet from the clouds in the sky through the volcanoes on its surface all the way down to its very core." He added, "It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet."

The News Talkie Bureau

Source:

NDTV