Journal article
Venus: key to understanding the evolution of terrestrial planets
- Abstract:
- In this paper, originally submitted in answer to ESA’s “Voyage 2050” call to shape the agency’s space science missions in the 2035–2050 timeframe, we emphasize the importance of a Venus exploration programme for the wider goal of understanding the diversity and evolution of habitable planets. Comparing the interior, surface, and atmosphere evolution of Earth, Mars, and Venus is essential to understanding what processes determined habitability of our own planet and Earth-like planets everywhere. This is particularly true in an era where we expect thousands, and then millions, of terrestrial exoplanets to be discovered. Earth and Mars have already dedicated exploration programmes, but our understanding of Venus, particularly of its geology and its history, lags behind. Multiple exploration vehicles will be needed to characterize Venus’ richly varied interior, surface, atmosphere and magnetosphere environments. Between now and 2050 we recommend that ESA launch at least two M-class missions to Venus (in order of priority): a geophysics-focussed orbiter (the currently proposed M5 EnVision orbiter – [1] – or equivalent); and an in situ atmospheric mission (such as the M3 EVE balloon mission – [2]). An in situ and orbital mission could be combined in a single L-class mission, as was argued in responses to the call for L2/L3 themes [3,4,5]. After these two missions, further priorities include a surface lander demonstrating the high-temperature technologies needed for extended surface missions; and/or a further orbiter with follow-up high-resolution surface radar imaging, and atmospheric and/or ionospheric investigations.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 4.6MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s10686-021-09766-0
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Experimental Astronomy More from this journal
- Volume:
- 54
- Pages:
- 575-595
- Publication date:
- 2021-06-08
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-05-19
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1572-9508
- ISSN:
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0922-6435
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1175623
- Local pid:
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pubs:1175623
- Deposit date:
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2021-06-08
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Wilson et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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