Soar through Venus' atmosphere with this NASA Davinci mission preview video
The Davinci probe will parachute to the surface of the inferno planet.
Venus is all the rage. With a trio of major Venus missions in development, the inferno planet is going to be scrutinized and studied like never before. This week, NASA unveiled a video preview for its Davinci mission, which includes a probe that will take a dramatic plunge down to the planet's blazing-hot surface.
The mission's name connects to Italian Renaissance intellectual Leonardo da Vinci. It also cleverly stands for "deep atmosphere Venus investigation of noble gases, chemistry, and imaging."
The video acts as a mission overview, and it includes some nifty animations along with some da Vinci-inspired graphics. The mission will feature flybys to study the Venus cloud tops, but one of its most anticipated moments will be the release of a probe that will head for the planet's surface.
The descent sphere will fall through Venus's thick and toxic atmosphere, collecting data along the way. "The descent location, the Alpha Regio 'tessera,' is a mountainous highland region whose rocks may hold clues to the planet's mysterious past," NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said. We can expect spectacular images from the probe's descent camera.
Venus has been called Earth's twin, but it took a very different path from our planet and is a hellishly hot place. NASA is hoping to launch Davinci in 2029, so we'll have to be content in the meantime with animations imagining its adventures.