NASA is mulling four proposals for planetary space missions and an astrobiologist says the 'logical choice' would be to send a probe to Venus after the discovery of a gas in the harshly acidic clouds in planet's atmosphere.
A robotic probe could be sent to Venus to determine whether it harbours life if the proposed science mission wins over a NASA panel currently reviewing four planetary pursuits.NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said it was "time to prioritise Venus" in light of the gas discoveryAn astrobiologist involved in the Venus mission says selections should be responsive to recent discoveries: traces of phosphine, a gas that on Earth is produced by bacteria inhabiting oxygen-free environments.
"Davinci is the logical one to choose if you're motivated in part by wanting to follow this up — because the way to follow this up is to actually go there and see what's going on in the atmosphere," David Grinspoon, an astrobiologist working on the DAVINCI+ proposal, told Reuters. The three other proposals include: IVO, a mission to Jupiter's volcanically active moon Io; Trident, a fly-by trek to map Neptune's icy moon Triton; and VERITAS, the second of the proposed Venus missions that instead would focus on understanding the planet's geological history.Watch
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