JAKARTA – The United States Space Agency or NASA announced that it has chosen to fund two exploratory missions to the second closest planet to the Sun, Venus. The two exploratory missions to Venus were chosen after defeating two other competing concepts in NASA’s Discovery Program competition in February.
The mission, which is planned to be launched in 2028 and 2030, aims to understand how Venus has now become a hell-like world. When actually has so many characteristics that are similar to Earth. Because as is known, Venus is now the hottest planet in the Solar System, with a surface temperature of 500 degrees Celsius.
In addition, this mission also aims to conduct research on the possibility of the first habitable world in the Solar System, complete with oceans and climate like on Earth.
“The two sister missions share the goal of understanding how Venus became a hellish world, capable of melting lead on the surface,” said NASA chief Bill Nelson.
The exploration missions, named DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) and VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy), will each receive US$ 500 million or more. equivalent to IDR 7 trillion.
DAVINCI+ and VERITA
Through its official page, NASA explains in more detail that the DAVINCI+ mission will take measurements of the composition of Venus’ atmosphere to understand how it formed and evolved. And determine whether the planet ever had an ocean.
The mission will explore through the planet’s thick atmosphere, making precise measurements of the noble gases and other elements, to understand Venus’ atmosphere and compare it to Earth’s.
In addition, DAVINCI+ will take the first high-resolution images of a unique geological rock on Venus known as “tesserae“, which is probably comparable to Earth’s continents, and suggests that Venus has plate tectonics.
VERITAS, on the other hand, is a mission to map the surface of Venus to determine the planet’s geological history and understand why it developed so differently from Earth.
Will orbit Venus with synthetic aperture radar, VERITAS will map the surface elevations of nearly the entire planet to make 3D reconstructions of the topography and confirm whether processes such as plate tectonics and volcanism are still active on Venus.
VERITAS will also map infrared emissions from the Venusian surface to study rock types and determine whether active volcanoes are releasing water vapor into Venus’ atmosphere.
“It’s surprising how little we know about Venus. But the combined results of this mission will tell us about the planet from the clouds in the sky through the volcanoes on its surface to its core. It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet,” said NASA’s Discovery Program scientist, Tom Wagner.
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