Venus, Earth's closest neighbor, can be studied to learn how other planets can support life.

Two next NASA missions, according to a planetary geologist, could instruct us greatly on the potential for life elsewhere in the universe.
Venus and Earth are similar in many respects. Both of them are around the same size. Both of their surfaces are covered in lava flows and volcanoes. But there are also some significant disparities. The atmosphere of our nearest planetary neighbor is a suffocating blanket of sulfuric acid clouds, with a surface temperature of approximately 867 degrees Fahrenheit (464 degrees Celsius).

What transpired on Venus, then? Why did it become so hostile while Earth, its sister planet, is teeming with life? These are basic problems, but for the past 20 to 30 years, Mars has received most of the attention, whereas Venus has received relatively little. But now that NASA has given the go-ahead for the unmanned DAVINCI and VERITAS missions, which are expected to launch within the next ten years, researchers have a chance to finally solve some of the long-standing riddles of Venus. They claim that comprehending our sister planet is essential to our search for extraterrestrial life.

Wesleyan University planetary scientist and geologist Martha Gilmore says of Venus, "It's the only planet that can tell us, what does it take to make Earth? We can learn new things about the formation of Earth-like planets by studying a world that is so similar to our own, she claims.

In a recent lecture, Gilmore underlined the uniqueness of Venus at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History. Given that it is Earth-sized, its gravitational field and formation process are most likely comparable to those of our planet. Due to its proximity to the Sun, which is comparable to that of our planet, it is also within what astronomers call the "habitable zone." Yet, we don't know much about it.

Venus has a lot of volcanic activity, and preliminary samples and photographs taken between the 1960s and 1990s revealed that there may even be some water there. However, due to its harsh environment, the planet was disregarded as a potential home for extraterrestrial life. Although various missions from Japan and the European Space Agency have collected data on the planet's atmosphere, no spacecraft has since returned to explore the planet's surface.


Using probes from the Soviet Union's Venera missions, only seven rocks on the surface of Venus have ever been studied. This is far too few to make any real discoveries. We need to go back because, according to Gilmore, "we're in the position of drawing interpretations about an Earth-sized planet with seven rocks." These are currently used in her study.

Tessera, a region of rock formations that have only been observed on Venus, is something in which Gilmore is particularly interested. The oldest rocks on earth are reportedly found in these formations. Gilmore claims that granite is most likely the material used to make tessera based on radar photos and spectroscopy. Studying these rocks can assist determine whether Venus had oceans because granite is generated on Earth at high temperatures in the presence of water. It can also provide information about the geological history of the planet.


After years of Venus scholars pleading for more investigation, scientists are now returning to the yellow planet, and Gilmore is a part of both missions. DAVINCI, the first future mission to Venus, is planned to launch in 2029.

If everything goes according to plan, the spacecraft will pass Venus and land a probe in the Alpha Regio, one of the primary locations for tesserae.


According to James Garvin, the mission's chief investigator, "DAVINCI's job is to go there, precisely to create the way for other missions to follow to ask really, very serious questions that are too hard to address right now." In order to determine how Venus formed and changed over time, the probe will analyze Alpha Regio's fine-grained surface and monitor the atmosphere's chemical makeup.


The other project is VERITAS, which, like the Magellan mission in the 1990s, will use radar to capture photos of the entire planet.

The mission, which is scheduled to launch no later than 2031, will take much higher-resolution images than Magellan in new wavelengths, with the goal of revealing novel information about the planet's topography and geological composition.


These future missions aim to improve not only our understanding of Venus, but also of what makes a planet suitable for life. With the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope gathering data on planets beyond our solar system, we are seeing more instances of Venus-like planets. Understanding whether Venus was ever habitable and why it became so different from Earth can help scientists interpret the telescope's findings through a new lens.