Written by Janhvi Jain,  a grade 4 student

One more exciting piece of news has come from Nasa. Two new missions to the planet Venus have been announced! This planet next door to us is still a mystery for scientists. The missions will hope to uncover the planet’s secrets using some super cool technology.

Our Neighbour

Venus is the second planet in our solar system and is Earth’s neighbour. It has no life, though it may have the same characteristics as our planet,  like oceans, chemicals, and an atmosphere.

The Missions

Nasa’s missions are designed to study why Venus became an inferno-like planet. Nasa has selected two missions- DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) and VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy).

DAVINCI+

DAVINCI+ will collect information about Venus. It will drop a robotic probe on the planet to study how it was formed and evolved, what all things are there in its atmosphere, and whether the planet ever had an ocean.

VERITAS

VERITAS will cover the geological history of Venus. It will also determine the difference between the surface of Venus from Earth. It will try to find if there are there any active volcanoes on Venus. Does it have plate tectonics like Earth?

NASA’S New Tools

Nasa is using new technology for this mission like Deep space mission clock 2 for VERITAS and Compact Ultraviolet to Visible Imaging Spectrometer (CUVIS) for DAVINCI+. They are using Radar technology for this.

NASA is awarding approximately $500 million for each mission. Each is expected to launch in the 2028-2030 timeframe. It has been nearly 30 years since NASA went to Venus. This time, with the latest technology, NASA will find out so much more about Venus, which twinkles as the evening star in the sky.

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