With the desire to become interplanetary, while the first destination is Mars, its closest rival could be Venus, as Earth begins to plan various missions to the next neighbor. However, before deciding to go to Venus, a critical need will be to find out the organic and chemical composition of the planet.
Who better than Davinci to help in this search.
The noble gas, chemistry, and deep atmosphere imaging mission of Venus, also known as Davinci, will be launched on Venus in 2029 to find out the science. The spacecraft will have a dedicated instrument to find the amount of oxygen present near the planet’s surface. It will be equipped with Venus Oxygen Fugacity (VfOx), a small button-sized sensor that will perform innovative measurements.
NASA said that by analyzing these innovative VfOx measurements, scientists will, for the first time, seek to identify which minerals are most stable on the surface of Venus in the highlands and link rock formation to their history. of recent modification.
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This global view of the surface of Venus is centered at 180 degrees east longitude. Magellan’s synthetic aperture radar mosaics from Magellan’s first mapping cycle are mapped to a computer-simulated globe to create this image. (Photo: NASA)
WHAT IS VFOX?
Venus Oxygen Fugacity (VfOx) is being designed by undergraduate and graduate students for the DAVINCI mission in the atmosphere of Venus. The sensor will be mounted on the outside of the descent sphere, where it will measure the fugacity of oxygen, the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere deep beneath the clouds of Venus.
The spacecraft will enter Venus after two years of reaching Venus’ orbit, ingesting and analyzing atmospheric gases and collecting images as it descends to the surface of the planet in the Alpha Regio region. The VFX will work similarly to the oxygen sensor of many car engines, which measures the amount of oxygen in the fuel system relative to other fuel components.
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“Understanding the amount of oxygen in Venus’ atmosphere will be important in preparing to characterize Venus-like worlds beyond our solar system with JWST and future observatories. The amount of oxygen Venus has in its deepest atmosphere it will help scientists study these remote worlds, “NASA said in a statement.
WHAT IS THE DAVINCI MISSION?
The Davinci mission will measure the composition of Venus’ atmosphere to understand how it formed and evolved, as well as determine if the planet has ever had an ocean. The mission will aim to find the first clues about the possibility of life on Venus.
Venus and Earth are similar in size and density, so hypothetically, these planets could be very similar. And yet they are surprisingly different. The spacecraft will aim to observe signs of changes on the planet that could also be replicated on Earth due to climate change.
DAVINCI +, like its namesake, will return the first high-resolution images of this world detailing its geological features, which may be comparable to those of the Earth’s continents, suggesting that Venus has tectonic plates.
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