Unraveling the mystery: Why NASA is finally looking into Venus’ habitable past to understand Earth’s future
Venus doesn’t seem to be on people’s mind these days. It’s more Mars or bust when it comes down to space exploration within our own solar system. The last time Venus was part of our popular culture was back in the 1940’s even though it’s without a doubt the most Earth-like world we know of and our nearest neighbor.
Ok, we might have been studying Venus extensively from afar, but no one ever asked the reason behind it’s obvious and toxic demise.
However, NASA recently hosted a fairly interesting workshop at its headquarters in Washington D.C. on a Planetary Science Vision for 2050 to change our perception of Venus and more importantly, to get beneath its atmosphere 90 times thicker than ours.
James Cutts, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and other members of the Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) presented a sound concept for future missions to Venus with the only downside being the timetable. Due to the demanding technical challenges required to penetrate Venus’ caustic clouds and furthermore collect any samples, NASA targets the year 2040.
But according to Cutts, the samples you’d get this way would be of far greater scientific value. Maybe, NASA will then also be able to unravel the mystery why Venus has lost its liquid water, its breathable air, only to become the not so charming and hellishly hot planet with a toxic and almost impenetrable atmosphere.
Yes, the evidence that Venus indeed was habitable in its distant past is growing substantially and quite a few respected scientists do think Venus might represent the most interesting and accurate window into our planet’s future. Cutts agreed in an interview that Venus could even help understand the habitable zone beyond our solar system by stating that“There’s a lot of interest today in Earth-sized [exo]planets — but they’re also Venus-sized […] It’ll be very interesting to discern,” what makes a exo-planet what it is.
So, unsurprisingly the main goals of any sample-return mission will be to “understanding the atmosphere’s formation, evolution, and history.”
But Cutts also noted that there is a weird atmospheric phenomenon at work, where UV radiation is absorbed in the sky by adding “One thing, of course, is the Venus greenhouse effect and what controls that […] It’s probably very complicated, and we’d have a better shot understanding the chemistry back on Earth.”
Now that NASA expressed interest in Venus it will be interesting to see what other Space agencies are doing with their respective missions. Russia obviously seems committed to sending its orbiter and lander Venera-D to Venus within a couple of years.
Venus literally has been gaining traction again and many in the scientific community now believe that it could have been habitable for almost two billion years. That’s a long time, especially considering that Humanity has only been on Earth for about 200.000 years now. Who knows what we’ll find on the planet itself once the atmospheric pressure 92 times of Earth has been overcome.
This article was originally published on pionic.
