At the end of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was raging, there was a moment when everyone’s eyes left Earth for a while and turned to the neighboring planet Venus. Because astronomers have made a startling discovery at the top of Venus’ clouds. What astronomers discovered phosphine gasit was On Earth, phosphines are made through biological processes. All sorts of speculation arose as scientists struggled to understand what the discovery meant.
And now an exploratory mission, set to begin next year, may finally answer the question that has been thrilling astronomers since then. Are microbes really spewing phosphines on Venus?
Subsequent studies were Although the detection of phosphine was questioned,The discovery of phosphines revived interest in Venus. After the phosphine study was published, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have launched a new mission to explore Venus. threehas been selected In this mission, in particular, we plan to fly to Venus and conduct an investigation to find out if Venus was a habitable environment in the past. China and India also plan to send probes to Venus. “The discovery of phosphine is a reminder that we don’t really understand Venus,” said Colin Wilson of the University of Oxford, one of the senior scientists on the European mission to explore Venus, EnVision. said.
However, most Venus exploration missions are not expected to deliver results until the late 2020s or 2030s. Astronomers wanted to know the answer right away. Fortunately, Peter Beck, CEO of private space company Rocket Lab, was thinking the same as the astronomers. For Beck, who had long been fascinated by Venus, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists proposed a daring mission to explore life on Venus much faster than other missions using Rocket Lab’s rocket. The start of the exploration mission they suggested was 2023. (The preliminary launch date is January 2025.)
Whether phosphines exist or not, scientists have found that if there is life on Venus, small drops of sulfuric acid I think there is a possibility that it exists in the form of microorganisms inside. The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead, and the pressure is high enough to be similar to the bottom of the earth’s ocean, making it difficult for life to survive. However, the environment in the clouds of Venus, which is 45 to 60 kilometers above the ground, is much milder.
“I’ve always felt that Venus was being misjudged,” Beck said.
The details of this mission, the first privately funded mission to another planet, have been recently opendone. Rocket Lab has developed a multi-purpose small spacecraft the size of a table, the Photon, which can be sent to various locations in the solar system. NASA’s lunar mission, conducted by Rocket Lab Junestarted on To carry out this Venus mission, Rocket Labs will use another photon spacecraft to throw a small probe into Venus’ atmosphere.
The probe to be thrown to Venus is currently being developed by a team of less than 30 people led by MIT’s Sara Seager. Scheduled to launch as early as May 2023, the probe will reach Venus in October 2023, five months later. The mission, backed by Rocket Lab, MIT and undisclosed philanthropists, is risky but costs less than $10 million. That’s only 2% of the cost of one NASA mission to Venus.
“This mission is the simplest, cheapest and best thing we can do to try great discoveries,” Seager said.
The probe weighs only 20 kg and is only about 40 cm wide, which is slightly larger than a basketball hoop. The cone-shaped design boasts a front heat shield. This will allow the probe to withstand the powerful thermal shocks that will occur when it is released from the photon spacecraft and collides with the atmosphere of Venus at a speed of 40,000 km/h.
One piece of equipment weighing only 0.9 kg will be loaded inside the probe. There is no camera on board to take pictures as the probe descends through the clouds of Venus. This is because there is neither the wireless power nor the time to take pictures and send them to Earth. “We need to conserve power so much that only the data we need is sent to Earth,” Beck said.
In this expedition, what scientists want is not photography, but a close-up study of Venus’ clouds. An autofluorescing nephelometer will be used during the irradiation process. This device is a device that illuminates small water droplets in the atmosphere of Venus with an ultraviolet laser to determine the molecular composition contained in them. As the probe descends, a laser will illuminate the outside through a small window. This will stimulate complex molecules, including organic compounds that may be present in the droplet, to fluoresce.
“We’re going to look for organic particles in cloud droplets,” says Seeger. Finding organic particles does not constitute evidence of life. This is because organic molecules can also be made in ways that are independent of biological processes. But the discovery of organic particles, Seager said, would be the first step “for us to start thinking that Venus is a potentially habitable environment.”
The only way to find traces of life that you think may still exist on Venus is to investigate it directly in Venus’ atmosphere. Orbiting spacecraft can tell us a lot about the planet’s overall properties, but to really understand the planet, we need to send a probe to study it up close. Although the Soviet Union and the United States have sent probes to Venus in the 20th century, the Rocket Lab and MIT attempt is the first mission with a clear objective of discovering life.
Seager said that the probe used for this mission will not search for phosphines, as there will be no equipment to search for phosphines. The discovery of phosphines could be a mission for NASA’s DAVINCI+, scheduled to launch in 2029.
NASA / ARC VIA RESEARCHGATE
This mission between Rocket Lab and MIT will be a short one. As it descends to the surface of Venus, the probe will have to perform experiments in the clouds of Venus for only five minutes, and will transmit data back to Earth as it plunges to the surface of Venus. If the probe survives, it could collect additional data even under the clouds. An hour after entering Venus’ atmosphere, the probe will reach the surface and communications will probably be cut off before then.
Jane Greaves, who led the initial study of the discovery of phosphines on Venus, said she was excited about the mission. “I’m very excited,” she added. “This mission is a great opportunity to explore organic matter that could mean that there is life on Venus.”
Seager hopes that the exploration of Venus will continue after this mission. Her team will be the follow-up to this study, a brief glimpse into Venus’ atmosphere. future missionis planning One idea for follow-up research is to place balloons in clouds, like the Soviet Vega probes in the 1980s. This will allow the investigation to proceed for a longer period of time.
“We need more time to stay in the clouds,” Seager said. It would be ideal if the mission was carried out with a probe capable of carrying more equipment. “If you’re looking for complex molecules, not just looking for traces, an hour would be enough,” she adds.
This first mission could demonstrate the role that private companies can play in planetary science. While institutions like NASA are pouring millions of dollars into space missions, companies like Rocket Labs could be tasked with operating smaller spacecraft that can quickly respond to discoveries like Venus’ phosphine.
Could this small but powerful effort lead to the first discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life in space? “It’s a small possibility, but it’s worth a try,” Beck said.