NASA is returning to Venus for the first time in more than 30 years, as the space agency unveiled two new $500 million missions on Wednesday that are expected to launch within the next 10 years.

As part of its State of the Agency address, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said the missions, DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, would head to the planet known as 'Earth's evil twin' as part of its Discovery program.

'The missions aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world when it has so many other characteristics similar to ours – and may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate,' NASA said in a release.

DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) will measure Venus' atmosphere to understand how it formed and evolved and determine whether it ever had an ocean.

It will also look for noble gases -- such as helium, neon, argon and krypton -- in its atmosphere and find out why it is a 'runaway hothouse,' when compared to Earth.

In 2020, scientists caused a stir when they said that trace amounts of phosphine gas, a colorless gas that is naturally produced mainly by certain microorganisms in the absence of oxygen, were discovered.

Those hopes may have been dashed however, when a separate study said that it wasn't phosphine that was detected, but 'ordinary' sulfur dioxide.

The instruments that measure the noble gases could also determine whether phosphine indeed exists, the New York Times reported.

DAVINCI+ will also send back the first high-resolution images of Venus' 'tesserae,' which may be comparable to Earth's continents.

'Using cutting-edge technologies that NASA has developed and refined over many years of missions and technology programs, we're ushering in a new decade of Venus to understand how an Earth-like planet can become a hothouse,' said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science, in the statement.

Zurbuchen continued: 'Our goals are profound. It is not just understanding the evolution of planets and habitability in our own solar system, but extending beyond these boundaries to exoplanets, an exciting and emerging area of research for NASA.'

NASA has send two missions to Venus in recent memory: the Pioneer-Venus project in 1978 and Magellan.

Magellan, which returned to the planet in August 1990, spent more than four years observing Venus until radio contact was lost on October 12, 1994.

Subsequent NASA missions have flown by Venus, including the Parker Solar Probe, which detected a radio signal from the planet's atmosphere last month, CNN reported.

Japan's Akatsuki is the only spacecraft currently orbiting the planet.

The other mission, VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) will map the surface of Venus and look at its geologic history in an effort to find out why it developed so much differently than Earth.

It will use a synthetic aperture radar and 'chart surface elevations over nearly the entire planet to create 3D reconstructions of topography' to see whether plate tectonics and volcanic activity are still happening on the planet, NASA added.

'It is astounding how little we know about Venus, but the combined results of these missions will tell us about the planet from the clouds in its sky through the volcanoes on its surface all the way down to its very core,' Tom Wagner, NASA's Discovery Program scientist added. 'It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet.'

In 2019, researchers said Venus may have had stable temperatures in its past and could have had 'liquid water' for 2 to 3 billion years.

Approximately 700 million years ago, it underwent a 'dramatic transformation' --possibly due to volcanic eruptions -- that completely altered the planet.

Venus presently has a surface temperature of 864 degrees Fahrenheit.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9645757/NASA-sending-mission-Venus-explore-planet-time-30-years.html

We are still talking about cow grazing in this part of the world, while some countries are far discovering things through technology, direction less leaders have finished the country and some human beings are still trying to repackage the same people without direction for political office come 2023...and some jobless and no brain � youths are the people campaigning for them...

And dis is the Oyibo dis hopeless country is always quick to compare itself with evwrytime and hopes to overtake in the future

Omo oduduwa when will we go to Uranus

I won't be Suprised if they come up with sitings of numerous UFO's and aliens in the course of this adventure. The World is prepping for some huge stuff.
The Coming of Jesus is at Hand. Repent and believe the gospel.

Divoc19:
Nigeria, when?

when ready to surrender that pussy to me

E Go Be

Not impressed. By now we should be doing interstellar travel, not sending rocket to neighbor Venus. For instance Proxima Centauri B is just about 40 trillion kilometers away from Earth and lies within an habitable zone of it's star. Shouldn't we be more interested in that?

Even though there are 3 levels of civilization(According to Kardashev scale)

Type 1: Interplanetary
Type 2: Interstellar
Type 3: Intergalactic

I feel very sorry for humanity cos we are at level 0.6 and won't still get to level 1 in the next 500yrs.

Here in Nigeria, The Mannequin is determine to drag us back to level -5. Cos he will soon Propose Cows to be voting

I no blame him. Na the Rhodes university professor wey deny me the M.sc admission that will allow me be part of the team working on building 'Square Kilometers Array' which will enable us study the universe in a way that has never been done b4 thereby driving technological developments worldwide and allow us at least get to type 1 civilization quickly.

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viceddy95:
We are still talking about cow grazing in this part of the world, while some countries are far discovering things through technology, direction less leaders have finished the country and some human beings are still trying to repackage the same people without direction for political office come 2023...and some jobless and no brain � youths are the people campaigning for them...

So pathetic

Nice exploration, I believe one day scientist will be able to proof Human existence beyond this planet Earth

hmm

Nice but none of our buz here in naija

We still dy here dy talk about RUGA, grazing, herdsmen while other countries are making groundbreaking discoveries


Giant of Africa, my azz



Even small Rwanda that underwent a major national crises in 1994 are making mad and foremost discoveries

Whoever swear for this sheethole been swear con die naked

Tueeh!!

It is more likely for 1+1 = 10 than a black nation catching up with the whites...\\

k

Some Science Haram boys will come here now and be criticizing, with the same gadget produced with the discovery from science and technology.

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Thanks.

Well, anything is welcome ...maybe some day in about 200years time we would get there, caise it baffles me that we are still lacking behind whrm it comes to inventions , science and technology,but ahead in terrorism,rape,banditory, incessant killings and rituals.

If we blacks are humans' then Caucasians are Aliens

Nigeria, when?

Noted

Venus. Been there.

Ok

Only fools will believe NASA and their photoshop and CGI trash they deceive the masses with year in and year out . Which Venus smelling lies