NASA announced two new missions to Venus earlier this month . Now, the European Space Agency (ESA) is also announcing its own plans to send the EnVision spacecraft to the planet closest to Earth.
Learn more: NASA: Back to Venus after 30 years with two new missions
Venus has been called Earth's sister planet or twin planet, but Earth is a place friendly to human life, with water, while Venus has an atmosphere that is 96.5% carbon dioxide and 3.5% nitrogen. The main component of the clouds above the carbon dioxide layer is sulfuric acid, and the temperature is extremely high. EnVision will provide "a holistic picture of the planet from its inner core to the upper atmosphere to determine how and why Venus and Earth evolved so differently."
ESA won't be entirely alone in this mission. NASA will be a partner , providing a radar instrument called Vensar to make high-resolution measurements of the planet's surface. EnVision will also monitor atmospheric gases, analyze the composition of the surface, and look for signs of active volcanoes.
See also: A new stunning image of the planet Venus has been published
Experts are particularly interested in studying Venus' atmosphere, especially after a 2020 paper suggested that the gas phosphine, which sometimes has biological origins, may be present in the planet's clouds. Another spacecraft, BepiColombo, headed to Mercury, stopped to take some measurements at Venus in late 2020. Researchers wonder if Venus was once habitable, or if it might host some form of microbial life now.
NASA 's missions to Venus will likely launch in 2028-2030, while ESA plans to send EnVision to the planet in the early 2030s.
"Together with the recently announced NASA-led missions, we will have a remarkably comprehensive science program on this enigmatic planet for the next decade," ESA's science director, Günther Hasinger, said on Thursday.
See also: Solar Orbiter captured views of Venus, Earth and Mars
However, it's not just NASA and ESA that want to explore Venus. The Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, has long sent a spacecraft to study Venus' atmosphere.
Source: CNET
