The European Space Agency approves EnVision, its major mission to Venus

The European Space Agency (ESA) approved on January 25 the construction and implementation of EnVision, a space mission aimed at answering many of the current open questions about the planet Venus.

Later this year the project will select a European industrial entrepreneur to begin construction work on the instruments and the spacecraft itself.

The mission will study Venus from there core internally to yours the atmosphere consider and will provide fundamental data on its volcanic activity and climate, key aspects for understanding how and when this planet, considered Earth’s twin, became so inhospitable.

EnVision is scheduled to launch 2031 on an Ariane 6 rocket and at the beginning 2035 will begin its scientific operations.

Our twin planet and neighbor

Although Venus was the first planet visited by a space probe back in the 1960s, it still is one of the planets with the most questions of the entire solar system. One of these main questions is to understand how this planet evolved, so that despite forming in Earth-like conditions, it evolved in a completely different way.

“When we talk about Venus, there are more unanswered questions than answers. We do not know how the surface and interior of the planet developed, whether Venus is geologically and tectonically active today or whether it has been active in the last billion years, how its atmosphere formed and how its climate has changed as a result of the geological Development has developed processes,” he says. Luisa LaraResearchers at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), a center involved in one of the mission’s instruments.

“Finding out what happened to Venus during its evolution into the inhospitable planet it is today is just one of EnVision’s scientific goals,” he clarifies. Gabriella Gillianother IAA researcher, “and it will be the first mission to simultaneously study the history, activity and climate of Venus.”

EnVision will be the first mission to simultaneously study the history, activity and climate of Venus

Gabriella Gilli (IAA-CSIC)

Although the atmosphere of Venus with her Sulfuric acid clouds It is impervious to visible light and does not allow a direct view of the planet’s surface. There are indirect methods to study it. On the one hand, this is achieved through a radarwhich penetrates the clouds like airplanes on Earth, and on the other hand, with certain wavelengths, especially in the near infrared, observation through the so-called atmospheric windows.

EnVision targets the surface of Venus. / THE

To achieve this, the ESA mission will be on board in collaboration with NASA six instruments which will study from its inner core to its surface and its atmosphere above the cloud layer up to an altitude of about 100 km.

Spanish participation on an instrument

The contribution of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia to the EnVision mission focuses on the instrument VenSpecconsisting of three spectrometers (U, H and M) for observation at wavelengths from visible to near infrared.

Specific, VenSpec-U will make it possible to analyze the planet’s atmosphere above its cloud layer and VenSpec-H, a high-resolution spectrograph, will measure the atmospheric layers closest to the planet’s surface, both the possible volcanic gases and their variability, and the aerosols that make up Venus’s clouds. Finally, VenSpec-M It will be able to estimate the thermal radiation and spectral properties of the planet’s surface.

“It is not possible to understand this surface of Venus without even understanding it the atmosphere. “VenSpec will allow us to determine this connection well,” explains Lara, “For example, VenSpec-M will be able to detect an active volcanic eruption on the surface of Venus by detecting hot lava, while VenSpec-H will be able to do so at the same time “The water vapor released by the volcano reaches the surface and VenSpec-U records the distribution of sulfur dioxide in the upper atmosphere as a signature of this volcanic eruption.”

The VenSpec-M spectrograph will be able to detect an active volcanic eruption on the surface of Venus by detecting hot lava

Luisa Lara (IAA-CSIC)

VenSpec-M instrument. / PI Jörn Helbert, DLR, Germany

The entire VenSpec suite is managed and coordinated by the Planetary Science Institute DLR (German Aerospace Center) In Berlin. Researchers from the University of the Basque Country are also part of the VenSpec U and H scientific teams.

“EnVision opens a new and promising stage in the exploration of Venus, whose atmosphere is one Nature laboratory to better understand the greenhouse effect and what the development of our planet could look like in the future,” emphasizes Gilli.

Artistic conception of the EnVision mission. / THE