NASA Selects 2 Missions to Study ‘Lost Habitable’ World of Venus “NASA has selected two new missions to Venus, Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor. Part of NASA’s Discovery Program, the missions aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world when it has so many other characteristics similar to ours – and may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate. These […]
No Phosphine In The Atmosphere Of Venus “The detection of phosphine (PH3) has been recently reported in the atmosphere of Venus employing mm-wave radio observations (Greaves et at. 2020). We here demonstrate that the observed PH3 feature with JCMT can be fully explained employing plausible mesospheric SO2 abundances (~100 ppbv as per the SO2 profile given in their figure 9), while the identification of PH3 in the ALMA data should […]
Hell Is in Space and It Belongs to Russia, Roscosmos Chief Says, Gizmmodo “Our country was the first and only one to successfully land on Venus,” Rogozin told attendees at the 2020 HeliRussia exhibition, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency. “The [Russian] spacecraft gathered information about the planet — it is like hell over there.” “We believe that Venus is a Russian planet,” Rogozin added. “Both agencies have historically […]
Breakthrough Initiatives to Fund Study into Search for Primitive Life in the Clouds of Venus “Breakthrough Initiatives, the privately-funded space science programs founded by science and technology investor and philanthropist Yuri Milner, are funding a research study into the possibility of primitive life in the clouds of Venus. The study is inspired by the discovery, announced yesterday, of the gas phosphine, considered a potential biosignature, in the planet’s atmosphere. The […]
Hints of life on Venus, RAS “An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, today announced the discovery of a rare molecule – phosphine – in the clouds of Venus. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially, or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. Astronomers have speculated for decades that high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes – floating free […]
Japan’s Akatsuki Is Orbiting Venus “The nail-biting maneuver that sent Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft into orbit around Venus this week is being celebrated by NASA scientists, eager to learn more about the atmosphere and climate of Earth’s enigmatic sister planet. At about 7 p.m. EST on Sunday, Dec. 6, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) commanded the climate orbiter to fire four […]
Space Quarterly Magazine September 2012 Table of Contents, SpaceRef Marc’s note: The September 2012 edition of Space Quarterly Magazine is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, September 4. There many highlights to the issue including an update on the Israeli and Iranian space programs, an interview with Jim Armor of ATK, Orbital Antares takes flight, the Plutonium shortage and from Neil deGrasse Tyson why a healthy space program equals a […]
Scientists Perceive NASA Bias Against Venus, Scientific American “Venus would seem to be a tempting destination for planetary probes: conveniently close, and an extreme laboratory for atmospheric processes familiar on Earth. So why won’t NASA send a mission there? That was the frustrated question coming from scientists at the annual meeting of NASA’s Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) near Washington, D.C., on August 30-31. They perceive an agency bias against […]
Japan probe overshoots Venus, headed toward sun, CNBC “The probe, called Akatsuki, which means dawn, reached Venus on Tuesday and fired its engines in an attempt to reach an elliptical orbit. But mission officials said they briefly lost contact after that and determined Wednesday that Akatsuki’s engines did not fire long enough to attain the proper orbiting position…. “Unfortunately, it did not attain an orbit,” said JAXA’s Hitoshi Soeno. “But […]
