DAVINCI will study Venus from clouds to ancient highlands

DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) will study Venus from above its clouds down to the surface, probing how the planet and its massive atmosphere formed and evolved over 4.5 billion years. Venus is made of solid rock at its surface, about the same size and similar distance from the Sun as Earth, but the long-held notion that it is Earth’s twin was dispelled when the first U.S.

spacecraft, Mariner 2, flew past Venus in 1962. The probe will be the first to descend through Venus’s atmosphere since the Soviet Vega 2 lander in 1985 and will touch down in Alpha Regio, a tessera region twice the size of Texas. Tesserae are cracked, wrinkled highlands found only on Venus; Alpha Regio sits about a mile (1.6 kilometers) above surrounding plains of volcanic lava and may expose rocks that are billions of years old.

United States, Alpha Regio

davinci, venus, atmosphere, alpha regio, tesserae, vega 2, mariner 2, noble gases, planetary formation, atmospheric descent