With its crushing atmospheric pressure, clouds of sulfuric acid, and searing surface temperature, Venus is an especially challenging place to study. But scientists know that observing its surface can provide […]
With advancements in low-cost launchers and small interplanetary spacecraft, NASA has recognized the potential of small missions to perform focused planetary science investigations at Mars and Venus.
![Mass - radius relations of puffy Venuses. a: M-R relations compared to observed exoplanets. The grey line is the M-R for terrestrial planets with an Earth-like core mass fraction of 0.325 (Plotnykov & Valencia 2020). Colored solid lines are puffy Venus radii assuming different Teq, with the fiducial, OC-like volatile C and H abundances. The orange dashed line is the M-R for Teq = 2000 K planets with a convective deep atmosphere to the MO surface, instead of a deep radiative zone. The shaded region is the range of M-R space an air-less rocky world can occupy for all possible Fe/Si ∈ [0, 1]. Planets less dense than this region require a volatile component. Measured exoplanet samples are from the NASA Exoplanet Archive (2023), and only contain those with relative errors below 30%. The nine planets highlighted with black circles are our preferred puffy Venus candidates. In rising mass order, they are GJ 1252 b, TOI-500 b, TOI-561 b, Kepler-10 b, Kepler-36 b, HD 219134 b, HD 3167 b, WASP-47 e, and 55 Cnc e. TOI-561 b’s radius is from Patel et al. (2023); its mass is from Brinkman et al. (2023) b: M-R of puffy Venuses with a range of chondritic C abundances, more opaque lines correspond to less C. They are color-coded by temperature - Teq = 1000 K (blue) and 2000 K (orange). The dashed orange line is for wet CI composition, while the solid line with the same color is for dry CI composition. The dotted portion of dry CI, 1000 K line are atmospheres that should experience graphite precipitation; see text. c: M-R of models assuming different chemical scenarios - I (solid), local chemical equilibrium throughout the atmosphere, II (dash-dot), chemical equilibrium at the MO surface, and a CO2 + H2O atmosphere (dotted). Fiducial OC C and H abundances are used. Same color-coding as b. The solid 1000 K and 2000 K lines in a, the 2 OC lines in b, and the 2 Scenario I lines in c are the same. -- astro-ph.EP](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Puffy-Venuses.png?resize=1200%2C717&ssl=1)
The recent advancements in exoplanet observations enable the potential detection of exo-Venuses, rocky planets with carbon-rich atmospheres. How extended these atmospheres can be, given high carbon abundances, has not been […]
Planetary scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered how Venus, Earth’s scalding and uninhabitable neighbor, became so dry.
Mars, Venus and Earth are expected to have started in a hot molten state. Here, we discuss how these three terrestrial planets diverged in their evolution and what mechanisms could […]
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 Jupiter-Saturn chaotic excitation (JSCE) scenario proposes that the protoplanetary disk was dynamically excited and depleted beyond ~1-1.5 au in a few Myr, offering a new and plausible explanation for […]
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.
After decades of relative neglect, interest in Venus surges anew in the planetary science community and the public.
Millimeter-waveband spectra of Venus from both the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) provide conclusive evidence (signal-to-noise ratio of about 15σ) of a phosphine […]
