By : Satyaki Paul
The first mission to Venus was initiated by NASA with the Discovery Program of 1992. The DAVINCI+ and VERITAS are extension of the earlier programs to study Venusian atmosphere and geology for any form of zoological habitability.
1) DAVINCI+: It is acronym for “Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging”.This mission will try to study the Venusian composition atmospherically so asto understand how the planet formed and evolved. This mission is also comprised of a descent sphere that will pass through the planet’s thick atmosphere and make annotations and take extents of noble gases and other elements present in it. Furthermore, this mission will also try to retrieve high resolution photographs of a geological feature that is exclusive to Venus i.e., “tesserae”. The presence of such geological characteristics suggest that Venus may have tectonic plates which are comparable to the ones at Earth.
2) VERITAS: It is acronym for “Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy”. This mission will map the planet’s surface through3-D reconstruction of its topography.Furthermore, this mission will also map the emissions from Venus’s surface that may help in determining the type of rocks that exist on Venus–a piece of information that is not exactly known yet. Thus, it will also aid the researchers to determine whether active volcanoes are releasing water vapour into the atmosphere or not.
All these leads to a question that: Why study Venus? As an answer we can say that such studies willrestructure the understanding of terrestrial planet creation in the solar system and beyond. These missions are expected to answer researchers and scientists more about Venus’s thick cloud cover and the volcanoes on its surface. Additionally, scientists and researchers speculate about the presence of life on Venus in its remote past and the leewaypotential that natural life may exist in the upper layers of its clouds where temperatures are bearable. The author works as a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta, and the co-author of the book Anthropology For All (2021).