NASA scientists are preparing to paint the most detailed picture yet of Venus’s atmosphere when the aptly named DAVINCI mission — or Exploration of Venus in the Deep Atmosphere of Noble Gases, Chemistry and Imaging — drops a probe on the planet’s surface.
As the 3-foot-wide (0.9 m) DAVINCI mission landing ball performs a one-way parachute flight to VenusIn the early 2030s, it will carry the Venus Atmospheric Structure (VASI) instrument along with five other instruments. VASI will collect data related to temperature, pressure and wind in Atmosphere of Venus It descends from Hell and enters the planet’s crushing lower atmosphere.
“There are really big mysteries about Venus’s deep atmosphere,” said Ralph Lorenz, chief scientist with the VASI instrument and planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland. statement. “We don’t have all the pieces of this puzzle and DAVINCI will provide us with those pieces by measuring composition along with pressure and temperature as we get closer to the surface.”
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Venus’s dense atmosphere hides many mysteries, including its structure, as well as how many volcanoes interacted with it over the ages. One of the main goals of scientists is to sink a probe into the atmosphere of the second planet from Sun is to determine if this world is still volcanically active. The probe can detect this through measurements of atmospheric temperatures, winds and composition.
Solving these mysteries may give scientists an idea of what continued volcanic activity could mean for our planet’s atmosphere.
“The long-term habitability of our planet, as we understand it, depends on the coupling of the interior and the atmosphere,” Lorenz said. “The long-term abundance of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, which we really depend on to keep the Earth’s surface warm enough to be habitable over geological time, depends on volcanoes.”
One-way ticket to Venus
One of the main challenges associated with the study of Venus was the extreme conditions of the planet, which show surface pressures up to 90 times greater than those found at a land and surface temperatures around 900°F (460°C).
In addition, before the probe reaches the surface of the planet from orbit, it must first pass through clouds of sulfuric acid in the upper atmosphere of Venus. (These clouds also make it difficult to observe Venus from Earth; they are reflective and shiny, and obscure our view of the planet’s surface.)
These threats mean that DAVINCI’s landing field systems and sensors will be surrounded by a robust submarine-like structure. But while the sphere is designed to withstand extreme atmospheric pressures and is insulated to protect the sensors from the intense heat near the surface of Venus, the VASI sensors must be exposed to some degree of extreme conditions to do their job.
“Venus is tough,” Lorenz said. Conditions, especially in low weather, make it very difficult to design devices and systems to support devices.” “All of this must either be protected from the environment or somehow built to withstand.”
As the ball descends through Venus’s atmosphere, VASI will measure the temperature with a sensor inside a thin metal straw-like tube. When the atmosphere heats the tube, the sensor measures and records the expansion and thus temperature without direct exposure to the corrosive environment.
VASI will collect atmospheric pressure readings using a silicone membrane enclosed inside. One side of the membrane is exposed to the vacuum while the other side faces the envelope of Venus. The atmosphere pushes and stretches the membrane, and the extent of this stretch reveals the strength of the atmospheric pressure.
The instrument will measure Venus’ winds with an array of accelerometers that test changes in speed and direction, and gyroscopes that measure direction. The mission will also track changes in wind speed and direction by monitoring changes in the frequency and length of radio waves.
Named after Italian Renaissance scientist Leonardo da Vinci, DAVINCI is currently scheduled to launch in 2029. If it stays on schedule, the Descent Sphere will plunge into the thick atmosphere of Venus in 2031.
The fall will take about an hour. The probe is not expected to survive the fall, but if it does, NASA scientists will be willing to get about 17 minutes of additional science on the surface with the exhausted instrument.
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