DAVINCI Archives

The Venus Zone (VZ) and Habitable Zone (HZ)

The Expected Yield Of Venus Zone Terrestrial Planets From PLATO

by Keith CowingJuly 17, 2026July 17, 2026

[astro-ph.EP] The characterization of terrestrial exoplanets and the conditions that lead to divergent climate outcomes is a primary goal of exoplanetary science.

The formation mechanism of the lower haze. Cosmic dust entering from space is incorporated into sulfuric acid clouds. As sulfuric acid evaporates at the cloud base, the dust particles remain and coagulate to form the lower haze. ©Hiroki Karyu et al.

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Status Report, Venus

Cosmic Dust Identified As The Source Of Venus’ Enigmatic Lower Haze

by Keith CowingApril 17, 2026April 17, 2026

Venus, often called Earth’s twin, is in fact a planet of extremes. Beneath its thick carbon dioxide atmosphere lie crushing surface temperatures and dense clouds of sulfuric acid. While the […]

Transformations between the ORF (blue), SRF (orange), and BRF (green), with Euler angles. The SRF and the BRF are both rotating frames, with ZS the spin axis of Venus and ZB its polar principal axis. The polar motion is the relative motion between the SRF and the BRF. -- astro-ph.EP

Missions & Hardware, Status Report, Venus

Polar Motion Of Venus

by Keith CowingMay 15, 2025May 15, 2025

Five Venus missions are under development to study the planet in the next decade, with both NASA’s VERITAS and ESA’s EnVision featuring a geophysical investigation among their objectives.

An artist's visualization of DAVINCI's descent probe lying on the surface of Venus. - NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Habitable Zones, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Venus

DAVINCI Mission Seeks To Unlock Venus’ Hidden Secrets

by Keith CowingDecember 17, 2024December 17, 2024

NASA’s DAVINCI — Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging — mission embodies the spirit of innovation and exploration that its namesake, Leonardo da Vinci, was famous […]

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Reports, Roadmaps, & Plans, Status Report, Venus

A New Strategy for the Exploration of Venus

by Keith CowingDecember 11, 2024December 11, 2024

The 2023-2032 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey Origins, Worlds, and Life recommended that “NASA develop scientific exploration strategies, as it has for Mars, in areas of broad scientific importance, […]

Venus emerges from its formation in a magma ocean phase (t = 0 Myr). From this point, Venus could have followed one of two possible pathways, each ultimately converging on the planet’s present climate state but leaving a mantle with a different composition: an H-poor interior results from the dry Venus path (upper) and an H-rich interior from the temperate and wet Venus path (lower). In the H-rich interior scenario, volcanic gases are enriched in H2O, whereas in the H-poor case, degassing of H2O is minimal, with a greater release of S and C species. See the text for a detailed description of climatic paths and ‘Signs of climate in the interior’ for an explanation of how H2O oceans are imprinted in the planetary interior. -- University of Cambridge

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release, Venus

Research Suggests That Venus Never Had Liquid Water On Its Surface

by Keith CowingDecember 3, 2024December 3, 2024

A team of astronomers has found that Venus has never been habitable, despite decades of speculation that our closest planetary neighbour was once much more like Earth than it is […]

Venus today is dry thanks to water loss to space as atomic hydrogen. In the dominant loss process, an HCO+ ion recombines with an electron, producing speedy H atoms (orange) that use CO molecules (blue) as a launchpad to escape. CREDIT Aurore Simonnet / Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics / University of Colorado Boulder

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Venus

Venus Has Almost No Water. A New Study May Reveal Why

by Keith CowingMay 6, 2024May 6, 2024

Planetary scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered how Venus, Earth’s scalding and uninhabitable neighbor, became so dry.

Venus. Full size: https://flic.kr/p/2pLPdrS Credit: ESA/DLR/VMC/AndreaLuck CC BY

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Fossils & Paleontology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release, Venus

To Find Life In The Universe, Look To Deadly Venus

by Keith CowingApril 23, 2024April 23, 2024

Despite surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead, lava-spewing volcanoes, and puffy clouds of sulfuric acid, uninhabitable Venus offers vital lessons about the potential for life on other planets, a […]

The illustration is of the X–YVSO plane with a cut at ZVSO = 0. The red segment shows the MSA observation sequence between 12:47 UT and 13:04 UT. The black arrows represent the FOV of MSA, and the blue arrow reflects the ions escaping at an angle of ~140° with the magnetic field lines (the angle is calculated using the FOV of MSA). Unlike other observation sequences, during this time window the incoming ions were moving in the same direction as the MSA FOV. The open magnetic field lines were obtained using the global hybrid model LatHyS (Latmos Hybrid Simulation50), with input parameters (for example, density, velocity, proton temperature and clock angle) constrained by Solar Orbiter observations in the upstream solar wind51. The polar view of Venus was taken from the Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) onboard Venus Express (credits: ESA/MPS). -- Nature Astronomy

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Venus

BepiColombo Observes Escaping Oxygen And Carbon In An Unexplored Region Of Venus’s Magnetosphere

by Keith CowingApril 12, 2024April 12, 2024

A fleeting visit of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Venus has revealed surprising insights into how gases are stripped away from the upper layers of the planet’s atmosphere.

NASA "Astrobiology Fleet" Chart (uncorrected)

Astrobiology (general), Missions & Hardware

Corrected And Updated Version Of NASA’s Astrobiology Fleet Chart (update)

by Keith CowingMarch 25, 2024March 25, 2024

Editor’s note: This Astrobiology Fleet chart was shown by David Grinspoon and Shawn Domagal-Goldman on 22 Mar 2024 at an AAS Goddard Memorial Science Meeting. It is rather incomplete and […]