{"id":24932,"date":"2021-07-14T20:38:10","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T12:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/previewing-envision-esas-newest-mission-to-venus-2\/"},"modified":"2021-07-14T20:38:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T12:38:10","slug":"previewing-envision-esas-newest-mission-to-venus-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/previewing-envision-esas-newest-mission-to-venus-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Previewing EnVision: ESA\u2019s newest mission to Venus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On June 10, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that they had selected their next mission to Venus \u2014 EnVision. The mission, set to operate alongside NASA\u2019s newly announced DAVINCI+ and VERITAS missions, will study Earth\u2019s sister planet in extreme detail.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Selected as the agency\u2019s fifth medium-class mission in their Cosmic Vision program, EnVision will use a suite of specially designed radars and instruments to map the surface of Venus and understand how the planet evolved so much differently from Earth. Additionally, EnVision hopes to answer questions regarding Venus\u2019 past, present, and future geologic and tectonic activity, and how it may effect Venus\u2019 environment.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Led by Dr. Richard Ghail of the University of London, EnVision is currently set to launch in the early 2030s on an Ariane 6 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With the amount of interest in Venus increasing due to recent scientific discoveries and missions like EnVision, the question \u201cwhy Venus?\u201d can be asked.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For Dr. Ghail, the interest in Venus started as a child.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I was six years old, Viking landed on Mars. I ran home from school to watch it on the TV, and it was really exciting. But something like nine months before that, the Russians had run Venera 9 on Venus. Which in many ways is even more remarkable, given the conditions on Venus,\u201d said Dr. Ghail in an interview with NASASpaceflight.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-79000\" class=\"wp-image-79000 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/venera9.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"994\" height=\"230\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/venera9.jpg 994w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/venera9-350x81.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/venera9-630x146.jpg 630w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/venera9-768x178.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 994px) 100vw, 994px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-79000\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Venus, taken by the Venera 9 lander, the first Venusian lander to return images from the surface. (Credit: Soviet space program; enhanced by NASA)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut growing up, the experience was that we were seeing ever more planets out in the solar system. We went to Jupiter, Saturn, etc. But Venus just remains a mystery. And then when I was doing my degree, towards the end of that Magellan arrived at Venus and kind of unveiled the planet, and we saw through the clouds to the surface and got our first real picture of this other world. And I got the chance to do a PhD studying it.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"widget-title penci-border-arrow\">See Also<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>EnVision Updates<\/li>\n<li>     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle <\/li>\n<li>European Forum Section<\/li>\n<li>L2 Future Vehicles Section<\/li>\n<li>Click here to Join L2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, the lack of missions and interest in studying the planet at the time, studying only Venus was not enough to get by for Dr. Ghail.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut Venus doesn\u2019t pay the bills. And so I ended up in engineering geology. I applied my radar knowledge to something called interferometry, where we measure very small-scale ground movements for tunneling and other things like that. And I realized at some point, I think around the time that Venus Express got selected, that we could fly one of these radars to Venus, and we could look for actual ground movement changes on Venus,\u201d Dr. Ghail said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd that is where EnVision came from.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned, one of the primary goals of EnVision\u2019s mission is to answer how and why Venus developed so much differently than Earth. Earth and Venus are often looked at as sister planets, as they share many characteristics; such as their size, orbit, surface composition, surface features, and atmospheres.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>However, Venus, as we now know, houses a much more hostile environment underneath its incredibly thick atmosphere.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"EnVision: ESA's next mission to Venus\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v2N5AKyQhGg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" name=\"fitvid0\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-14=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So, how will EnVision seek to answer how Venus became the hellish, hostile world it is today? For Dr. Ghail and the EnVision team, the philosophy behind using EnVision to solve this is similar to an Earth Observation philosophy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur goal really was to try to do all that we could from orbit, to make the observations that are possible to be made from orbit, to understand the processes that are going on. So we\u2019re really interested in Venus today, and how it got to be the way that it is today. Some of the other missions maybe are focused on Venus in the past, and while that\u2019s a question that leads to today, we are very much focused on Venus today.\u201d Dr. Ghail said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo look for evidence for past oceans, so maybe we see ancient shorelines, maybe we see sedimentary rocks. And to look at the spectra in the infrared of the rock types. Some of which, like granite, form in the presence of water, or typically form in the presence of water. And so if we see large bodies of granite, we know that Venus once had oceans. So we can get a handle on the past, but the focus is very much on really, why is Venus different to the Earth? And how did the two planets evolve differently?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd the focus is very much on, where is Venus active today? And what does that tell us about how Venus works today? And the focus at the moment I guess, is on volcanism as the easiest kind of activity to detect. We should see it in imagery. We will see it in hot spots in the infrared. We\u2019ll see the gasses that come out of the volcanoes and where they go.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another question EnVision is hoping to investigate and answer is what the current state of Venus\u2019 climate is like.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the big questions, the third big question we\u2019re trying to answer is, is the current climate of Venus stable in the long term? Has Venus been like this for a very long time? Or is this just how it is today, and tomorrow it will be different?\u201d said Dr. Ghail.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"MAGELLAN TO VENUS (1990) - NASA documentary\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fWbKRuKZ6MM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" name=\"fitvid1\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-14=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>(Video description: NASA\u2019s Magellan spacecraft was launched to Venus on the STS-30&nbsp;mission of Shuttle&nbsp;Atlantis on May 4, 1989 and&nbsp;began is four year, two month mission at the second planet in our solar system on August 10, 1990.)<\/p>\n<p>Venus\u2019 climate, as we currently know it, is extremely hostile and inhospitable. With a pressure of ~93 bar, temperatures of 740 K (467 \u00b0C, 872 \u00b0F), and extreme weather systems, the Venusian surface would not be a pleasant place to visit.<\/p>\n<p>So why is it this way?<\/p>\n<p>Many theories have been proposed throughout the decades suggesting when, how, and why Venus evolved more unpleasantly than Earth. However, with the lack of dedicated, advanced science missions to study the planet, we just don\u2019t know how.<\/p>\n<p>But volcanism, for Dr. Ghail and many other missions, is key to understanding what happened on Venus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll these questions are tied up together in the search for active volcanism. Where it takes place tells us how Venus works geologically. How much is taking place tells us how it\u2019s working geologically but also how the atmosphere is maintained. And how much gas coming out tells about not just the long-term climate but also the interior. Is the interior fully degassed? Is there no water left? Or is it actually still quite wet inside, and maybe Venus has continually lost its water? And the history side really comes from looking at particularly the images very carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Suppose we understood the extent of past and present volcanism on the surface of Venus. In that case, it will help scientists understand environmental processes that are currently present in Venus\u2019 atmosphere and on the surface.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause we do know that for instance, the sulfuric acid droplets in the clouds would break down and disappear on a timescale of probably a million years or something like that without active vulcanism,\u201d said Dr. Ghail.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the two stated goals set by the EnVision team, Dr. Ghail and his team have their eyes on some other areas of interest that they hope to investigate.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Venus close-up\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7YUy2k-edEo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" name=\"fitvid2\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-14=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>(Video caption: ESA\u2019s Venus Express mission spent April 2006 to January 2015 exploring Venus\u2019s&nbsp;surface and atmosphere rom orbit.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that Venus has quite a significant sedimentary cycle,\u201d said Dr. Ghail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot significant when you compare it to Earth in a terrestrial sense. I mean, we aren\u2019t seeing mountains disappearing in millions of years or things like that. But actually quite significant when you compare it to, say, the oceans, or Mars, where we see things that are billions of years old. And I\u2019d like to understand that sedimentary cycle a lot better. And I think EnVision is going to give us lots of information that will help us do that, both in terms of imagery and dynamics within the atmosphere, and chemistry, and all those other things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Dr. Ghail hopes to study Venus\u2019 insanely thick atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so I think we might get a very different picture of the environment of Venus in the lower atmosphere and how it works. I think almost, you know, I\u2019ve said this to a few people, we should really start to think the atmosphere of Venus as being more like an ocean, in terms of a big, dense, massive body of fluid that moves around, than an atmosphere in the sense that we think of it. So that\u2019s one of the big things I think for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To investigate Venus in detail, EnVision will use a suite of radars and spectrometers to map out certain areas of Venus\u2019 surface. Understanding what surface features are present in those areas will allow scientists to hypothesize what may have happened in the regions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"EnVision studying Venus\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KhJ0UVmHKjw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" name=\"fitvid3\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-14=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Following this, EnVision, or another mission like VERITAS, can return to that area of interest to gain more context on what geologic processes led to the formation of that surface feature.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur suite of observations are in the infrared, in the ultraviolet, in various radio spectra. The main imaging radar is at 3 GHz, but we also have a sounder at 10 MHz. So another frequency, and that allows us to get into the ground. And then, of course, we do tracking and radio science to probe both the clouds and the interior of the planet.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The first of EnVision\u2019s instruments is the Venus Synthetic Aperture Radar (VenSAR), which will serve as the spacecraft\u2019s main imaging radar. VenSAR will operate at 3 GHz in the S-band.<\/p>\n<p>Next is the Venus Subsurface Radar Sounder (SRS). SRS will study the surface composition and interior of Venus in great detail to give scientists an understanding of what materials are where. SRS will operate in the 9-30 MHz range.<\/p>\n<p>Sounders work by looking for dialectic contrast. These sounders will look for bright materials in contrast to dark materials.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere we see that contrast in the ground, we see a boundary and we can learn something. The two places where we think we will see that very clearly are the bottoms of craters, craters should be very rough and that\u2019s bright, and many of them are filled with a dark material. We don\u2019t know whether that\u2019s lava or sediments or some other process that\u2019s filling up crater floors, and the sounder will help us understand that, measure its thickness, look for the layering, and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The SRS will also look for tesserae \u2014 which are continental-like regions across the surface of Venus.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-79008\" class=\"size-full wp-image-79008\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Akatsuki.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"724\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Akatsuki.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Akatsuki-350x247.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Akatsuki-495x350.jpg 495w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Akatsuki-768x543.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-79008\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Akatsuki Venus climate orbiter mission from Japan is currently at Venus. While instruments have failed given the craft is in its 11th year of a planned 2 year mission, Akatsuki has enough propellant to remain operational until November 2021. (Credit: JAXA\/Akihiro Ikeshita)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know whether they are literally like our continents and as soon as you get to the plains they stop dead \u2014 you know, there\u2019s plains over here, and there\u2019s tesserae over here, and there\u2019s a sharp boundary \u2014 or whether they continue gradually under the plains and they\u2019ve been flooded over many millions of years by lava flows and other materials that make up the plains. And the sounder will help us understand that because it will see that boundary dipping down into the subsurface, either very gently or very steeply at the boundaries of the tesserae.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, EnVision will carry the Venus Spectroscopy Suite (VenSpec). VenSpec will house three main channels for observation: VenSpec-H, VenSpec-M and VenSpec-U. VenSpec-H will perform high-resolution observations on Venus\u2019 atmosphere. VenSpec-M will provide compositional information on Venusian rocks. Lastly, VenSpec-U will observe and monitor sulfured minor species and the mysterious UV absorber in Venus\u2019 atmospheric clouds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>All three of these instruments will allow EnVision to study Venus\u2019 surface in extreme detail and look for past and present geologic\/tectonic activity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there\u2019s two really important questions that we want answer with that radar, and then there are other things that we\u2019re looking for if we can find them. It\u2019s never been done before at Venus so we don\u2019t know exactly what we\u2019ll find,\u201d Dr. Ghail said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Ghail compared Earth\u2019s tectonic and geologic activity to that of Venus\u2019 to give us a better sense of where exactly researchers are in understanding Venusian tectonic activity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cif you looked at the Earth with the information we have about Venus, and you saw, let\u2019s say, the Pacific sea floor, you would see thousands, literally thousands of volcanoes. And without of some kind of prior knowledge as to which ones are active, because they\u2019re under the sea, they\u2019re not weathered, they\u2019re not eroded like they are on our continents, and so you wouldn\u2019t know whether they\u2019re active or not,\u201d said Dr. Ghail.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Venus 101 | National Geographic\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BvXa1n9fjow?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\" name=\"fitvid4\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-14=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you could have a dozen different models for how the Earth might make the Pacific ocean. And that\u2019s where we are with Venus. When you know where the active volcanoes are, you can see the mid-ocean ridge, you can see the subduction zones and the island arcs around them. And suddenly you see the picture of plate tectonics. And that is how our oceans are made and destroyed. Now we know, I think morphologically, that Venus doesn\u2019t have plate tectonics, at least not in the sense that the Earth has it in our oceans. In fact it looks a lot more like our continents in a tectonic sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is where EnVision\u2019s instruments come in to play.<\/p>\n<p>At Venus, EnVision\u2019s three main instruments will study the surface in extreme detail, and look for certain surface features that indicate what may have been \u2014 or is \u2014 going on in that area.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut we still don\u2019t know how it works, and I think when we get that information, when we know where that activity is taking place, and we see the pattern of it, particularly, we will get a much, much better understanding of how it works as a planet.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So, when you consider Venus\u2019 current environmental state, and how extreme its tectonics and geologic activity could be, the question \u201cdoes this activity have a connection with the atmosphere?\u201d can be asked.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On Earth, large scale tectonic activity like volcanic eruptions can influence weather patterns. However, Earth\u2019s climate regulates these weather patterns, and the area surrounding the eruption is back to normal after a few months or years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-nav-links\">Pages: 1 2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On June 10, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that they had selected their next mission to Venus \u2014 EnVision. The mission, set to operate alongside NASA\u2019s newly announced DAVINCI+ and VERITAS missions, will study Earth\u2019s sister planet in extreme detail.&nbsp; Selected as the agency\u2019s fifth medium-class mission in their Cosmic Vision program, EnVision will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2075,2077,246,3451,8109],"class_list":["post-24932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-davinci","tag-envision","tag-esa","tag-venus","tag-veritas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}