NASA Deep Atmosphere of Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging” (DAVINCI) will launch to Venus in 2029 and includes an atmospheric descent probe.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center James Tralie (ADNET): Lead Producer Lead Editor
Giada Arney (NASA): Narrator
Walt Feimer (KBRwyle): Animator
Jonathan North (KBRwyle): Animator
Michael Lentz (KBRwyle): Animator
Krystofer Kim (KBRwyle): Animator
James Garvin (NASA, Chief Scientist Goddard): Scientist
Music: "Blackened Skies" by Enrico Cacace and Lorenzo Castellarin of Universal Production Music
00:00It's 900 degrees hot at the surface, has powerful high-altitude winds, and is blanketed by a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere.
00:10The planet Venus. Although the same size and density as Earth, the similarities end there.
00:17Earth has water and light. Venus is desolate, dry, apparently lightless.
00:30The da Vinci mission, named after Leonardo da Vinci, will now take us back to Venus and address unresolved questions about this mysterious planet.
00:40This exciting new mission will launch in June 2029. During two gravity assist flybys, da Vinci will study the cloud tops in ultraviolet light,
00:50tracking cloud motions and analyzing mysterious ultraviolet absorbing chemicals.
00:56Both flybys will also examine night-side heat emanating from the surface.
01:01These geological clues will paint a global picture of surface composition and its evolution.
01:07Seven months after our second flyby, da Vinci will release its atmospheric descent probe, which will enter the atmosphere over the course of two days.
01:16The probe will take about an hour to fall through the atmosphere, taking measurements down to the surface.
01:22These measurements will include profiles of composition, winds, temperature, pressure and acceleration.
01:29Key gases will help us understand how Venus formed and evolved.
01:34Some of these measurements may even reveal signatures of ancient water.
01:39The spherical probe houses the state-of-the-art instruments that will work together to address questions about the Venus atmosphere,
01:47protecting them from the extreme temperatures, high pressures and acidic clouds in the environment.
01:53Da Vinci's camera peers down through a small viewing port, and once the probe passes below the clouds,
01:59it will start to collect a series of three-dimensional views that will also help us understand whether the rocks of the Alpha Reggio Highland region reveal a story of an ancient continent shaped by water.
02:11And an oxygen-sensing student collaboration experiment will reveal the role of this gas in the deep atmosphere.
02:18The discoveries that emerge from this diverse dataset will help tell us whether Venus was once habitable.
02:25And the story that we reveal will reach even beyond our solar system to analog exoplanets that will be observed with the James Webb Space Telescope.
02:36Venus is waiting for us all, and Da Vinci is ready to take us there and ignite a new Venus Renaissance.
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