The skies are giving us a rare and stunning sight this month, as a five-planet planetary parade will be visible in June of 2022. The parade of planets will include Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, all in that order. They’ll be visible throughout the sky from lower in the east to higher in the …
NASA has big plans to explore Venus within the next 10 years. Last week, the space agency shared details about its Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) probe. The probe is scheduled to launch in June of 2029. NASA hopes to have it in position to enter the atmosphere by …
NASA designed the Parker Solar Probe to study the sun. However, the spacecraft has also managed to capture a series of first-of-their-kind images of Venus. The images feature the surface of Venus in visible light. A first for NASA. Parker captured the photos using its Wide-Field Imager (WISPR). The images were snapped during two gravity-assisted …
NASA and other space agencies around the world have been focusing a lot of their attention on Mars as of late. It makes sense, since Mars is the planet most like Earth, and it’s the one planet that, as far as we know, had the best chance of hosting life at some point in its …
Venus is one of the closest planets to Earth in orbit around the Sun — the other being Mars, of course — but it’s still incredibly mysterious. Its surface is shrouded in thick clouds and temperatures there are hot enough to incinerate you in an instant. Its beefy atmosphere is much denser than that of …
If you’re a space news fan you’ve no doubt read many stories about exoplanet discoveries. Oftentimes, announcements of new exoplanets are coupled with information about the planet’s surface temperature and how long its years are. With that in mind, the idea that we never knew how long days are on Venus — the planet nearest …
The joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency to send a solar probe to the Sun just reached a critical milestone. The probe passed Venus over the weekend, making its closest approach to the planet at a distance of around 4,700 miles. The probe’s primary mission is to study the Sun, but it …
NASA found the clues to life on Venus almost four decades ago but never realized it. A probe that was sent to Venus back in 1978 returned readings that showed the presence of what appears to be phosphine, which may be produced by biological processes. The data supports the recent research that found phosphine in …
New research suggests that Venus was once potentially habitable, but that likely changed when Jupiter swooped in and messed things up. Venus once had a much more elliptical orbit, allowing its surface to cool off for extended periods of time. When Jupiter pushed up closer to the Sun, it may have changed the orbit of …
A space probe is about to fly by Venus, and it could help search for the faint signatures of life in the planet’s atmosphere. The BepiColombo probe is slated to make a pass of Venus next month, but it will be at a great distance from the planet, possibly minimizing the chances of detecting a …
