Magellan

The EnVision mission to Venus was officially adopted by the European Space Agency on Thursday, which means the organization has committed to getting the spacecraft Venus-bound by the early 2030s.NASA Delays Return to Earth's Evil Twin, VenusEnVision is a planned Venus orbiter designed to study the planet from its upper atmosphere to its core. Venus is in many ways a black (or mustard-colored) box for planetary evolution; thought to have formed in similar circumstances to Earth, the world is now hot, seasonless, and…

Maat Mons is displayed in this computer-generated, three-dimensional perspective of the surface of Venus. The viewpoint is located 634 kilometers (393 miles) north of Maat Mons at an elevation of 3 kilometers (2 miles) above the terrain. Lava flows extend for hundreds of kilometers across the fractured plains shown in the foreground, to the base of Maat Mons. NASA Magellan mission synthetic aperture radar data is combined with radar altimetry to develop a three-dimensional map of the surface. The vertical scale in this…

A highly anticipated mission to Venus is in trouble after NASA pulled all of its funding, save for a tiny fraction meant to keep the planetary orbiter on brittle life support as its fate hangs in the balance.Last week, NASA released its budget request for 2024 with a proposed total of $27.2 billion, of which $3.383 billion would be allocated towards planetary science. However, the space agency only requested $1.5 million for its Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS) mission, a…

The transit of Venus (right) across the sun’s face in 2012, as seen in false color by the SDO satellite.Photo: SDO/NASA (Getty Images)It’s been 30 years since a NASA spacecraft went to Venus, a yellowish planet 67 million miles from the Sun and 141 million miles from us. Venus is often thought of as a sibling planet to Earth, both being rocky worlds close enough to the Sun to bask in its heat. And yet, at some point in their histories, the two worlds diverged in an extreme way.In 2021, NASA and the European Space Agency…

This computer-generated 3D model of Venus’ surface shows the summit of Maat Mons, the volcano that is exhibiting signs of activity. A new study found one of Maat Mons’ vents became enlarged and changed shape over an eight-month period in 1991, indicating an eruptive event occurred. Credit: NASA/JPLIn a first, scientists have seen direct evidence of active volcanism on Earth’s twin, setting the stage for the agency’s VERITAS mission to investigate.Direct geological evidence of recent volcanic activity has been observed on…

A new analysis of 30-year-old images taken by the Magellan spacecraft suggests that a volcanic eruption happened on the planet between 1990 and 1992. In other words, Venus is a living planet.The discovery—published today in Science—seems to resolve a longstanding question about the scorching hot, craggy world: whether volcanoes are still active on the Venusian surface. If volcanic activity is responsible for the surface change seen in the images, Venus will be the third body in the solar system to host active magma…

Artist’s depiction of the VERITAS Venus mission.Image: NASA/JPLNASA’s JPL is struggling with issues related to budget, staffing, and poor communications, forcing the space agency to delay a highly anticipated mission to Venus.During the annual meeting of the Venus Exploration Analysis Group on Monday, Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division Lori Glaze described the mission delay as “the most painful thing I’ve ever had to do probably in my whole life.” However, Glaze said that in trying to address challenges…

The team preparing the prototype aerial robotic balloon for a test flight above the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.Photo: NASANASA wants to send a giant silver balloon to the hellish world of Venus, where the floatingrobot would explore the toxic Venusian atmosphere. Functional tests of a smaller prototype recently took place in a Nevada desert in preparation for this upcoming mission to the solar system’s inferno. The prototype of the aerial robotic balloon, or aerobot, just completed two successful test flights above the…

An illustration of the small spacecraft that Rocket Lab is currently developing to cruise through Venus’ clouds.Illustration: Rocket LabSpaceX might have its sights set on Mars, but Rocket Lab is seeking to become the first private company to reach Venus and explore its clouds for signs of potential habitability. Rocket Lab revealed new details about its self-funded mission to the Venusian clouds in a recent paper published in the journal Aerospace. The California-basedcompany is building a small probe that’s designed to…

NASA’s DAVINCI mission to Venus is scheduled for launch in 2029. A new paper details this upcoming journey, a daring mission that could shed new light on the scorching hot planet’s mysterious, and potentially habitable, past.Upon its arrival at the second planet from the Sun, the probe will plunge through Venus’ atmosphere, ingesting its gases for approximately one hour before landing on the planet’s surface, according to the paper published in The Planetary Science Journal. DAVINCI is designed to act as a flying…