NASA’s DAVINCI+ mission aims to study the composition of Venus’ atmosphere to understand how it formed, evolved, and whether if the planet ever had an ocean. The descent sphere may look like a UFO you see in movies, but it was designed to survive a plunge through the planet’s thick atmosphere, while taking precise measurements of noble gases and other elements to understand why the planet’s atmosphere is so brutal, or at least when compared to Earth.
Aside from the data, DAVINCI+ is also going to transmit the first high-resolution images of the planet’s unique geological features. These are called “tesserae” and are best compared to Earth’s continents, which could suggest that Venus has plate tectonics. It would mark the first U.S.-led mission to Venusian atmosphere since 1978, and the results from DAVINCI+ could be a game changer for researchers studying terrestrial planet formation in our solar system and beyond.
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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. It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet,” said Tom Wagner, NASA’s Discovery Program scientist.
