On June 7, NASA announced that it would launch a spacecraft to explore Venus in 2029. The probe plans to fly over Venus many times and reach the surface of Venus through the atmosphere of Venus with harsh environment p>
the atmosphere of Venus is very unfriendly to spacecraft, and the descent process can be called hell. The Venus exploration mission called "Da Vinci" will explore the rare gases and specific chemical components in the deep atmosphere of Venus and take photos. It will be the first space mission for human beings to explore Venus by flying over and landing p>
"Da Vinci" mission is expected to explore the atmosphere of Venus and reach the surface of Venus in June 2031. Since the early 1980s, scientists have been eager to obtain Venus data. If all goes well, the "Da Vinci" mission can capture detailed exploration data about Venus. Previously, NASA had only two missions to visit Venus, namely the "pioneer" launched in 1978 and the "Magellan" launched in the early 1990s p>
the "Da Vinci" spacecraft is essentially a flight chemistry laboratory, which can measure the different atmospheric and climatic compositions of Venus, and take the first aerial view of the Venus plateau during the descent. The instruments of the Da Vinci mission plan to map the surface of Venus and detect the mountain like distribution of Venus p> NASA scientists say that the features of these so-called "tesserae" blocks on Venus are similar to those of the earth's continents, which means that Venus may have plate tectonics p>
Jim Garvin, chief researcher of the Da Vinci mission at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement: "The combination of chemical composition, environment, and descent imaging data will paint a picture of the atmosphere of Venus and explain how it interacts with the surface of the Alfa Reggio mountains, which are twice the size of Texas." p>
"these exploration missions will enable us to evaluate the evolution process of Venus' atmosphere, detect special rock types such as granite on the surface of Venus, and look for landscape features that can tell us the erosion or other formation processes on the surface of Venus." p>
"Da Vinci" mission will also investigate whether Venus had an ocean in the past by measuring the composition of gas and water in the deepest atmosphere of Venus. Venus may be the first habitable world in our solar system. Scientists speculate that Venus previously had an ocean and climate similar to the earth; But something happened during this period, which turned Venus into a planet hot enough to melt lead p>
according to a study in 2019, before an event triggers drastic climate change, Venus may have stable temperature for billions of years, and there is liquid water. The author of this study is Michael way, a physical scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for space science. In 2016, he cooperated with people to study the prehistoric climate and ocean of Venus p>
now Venus is almost a dead star. Its toxic atmosphere is 90 times thicker than the earth, and its surface temperature can reach 462 ℃ p>
as the "Da Vinci" mission will fly over Venus many times, the spacecraft will use two instruments to study the atmosphere and draw a map of the height of Venus from orbit. Then, the spacecraft will release a descending probe with five instruments and arrive at the surface of Venus all the way p>
the descent process lasts about one hour, and the detector will use a heat shield to protect itself. When reaching an altitude of about 67 kilometers from the surface of Venus, the detector will discard the heat shield and sample and analyze the atmospheric gas. After the descent probe passes through the 30500 meter thick high-altitude cloud layer on the surface of Venus, it will take hundreds of photos p>
Stephanie Getty, deputy chief researcher of Goddard, said in a statement: "the probe will land in the alpharegio mountains, but it will no longer need to continue to operate after landing, because all required scientific data will be collected before reaching the surface of Venus." "If we can land at the speed of 11 meters per second, the probe can run on the surface of Venus for 17 to 18 minutes under ideal conditions." (Chenchen)