UPSC Articles
NASA selects two missions to the planet Venus
Part of: GS Prelims and GS -III – Sci and tech; Space
In news
- NASA has selected two missions to the planet Venus.
Details about the missions
- The missions are called DAVINCI+ and VERITAS
- These will be launched between 2028 and 2030.
- DAVINCI+ is ‘Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging’
- It is the first US-led mission to the planet’s atmosphere since 1978.
- It will try to understand Venus’ composition to see how the planet formed and evolved.
- It also consists of a descent sphere that will pass through the planet’s thick atmosphere and make observations and take measurements of noble gases and other elements.
- It will also try to return the first high resolution photographs of a geological feature, tesserae, that is unique to Venus. The presence of tesseraes may suggest that Venus has tectonic plates like Earth.
- The second mission called VERITAS is ‘Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy’
- It will map the planet’s surface to determine its geologic history and understand the reasons why it developed so differently from Earth.
