Write your abstract here. Messenger to Venus -our ‘Evil Twin’.
Launched
in August of 2004, the
MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry
and Ranging -or MESSENGER for short- is a NASA mission designed to
study the characteristics and environment of Mercury (and Venus left)
from orbit. The mission intends to characterize the chemical
composition of Mercury’s surface, look in to the geological history of
the planet, and more. Having
already made one flyby of Mercury in October of last year NASA hope to
make use of its need for a gravity assist from Venus to initiate an
almost science-fiction like experiment. Because Venus’
atmosphere is nearly transparent at several infra-red
levels, it has been hard to get consistent readings. But as the MLA
(Mercury Laser Altimeter) wavelength is close to one of those spectral
“windows”, they hope to get lucky. Sean Solomon, the mission''s
principal investigator at the Carnegie Institution of Washington
believes "It''s a long shot, but we may even see returns from the
surface of Venus…” The team is treating the flyby of Venus as the dry one for the big
flyby of Mercury later in January of 2008, with all instruments turned
on for the flight. Venus (hemispheric image above) has been visited more than any other
planet within our solar system, probably good reason. With no magnetic
field to calls its own, and to protect the planet from the solar winds
which hits Venus with a gale of charged particles at almost a million
miles an hour, scientists want to find out exactly what that does to an
atmosphere. "There is still much to understand about how solar wind removes
material from the top of Venus'' atmosphere," says Solomon. "We know
that the process over time is very effective for light elements such as
hydrogen, because the Venus atmosphere has a ratio of heavy hydrogen
(deuterium) to hydrogen that is higher than on Earth by a factor of
more than 100. Some of our measurements may capture this process in
action." In addition to the ‘laser-beam’, MESSENGER will use high-resolution
cameras, a suite of spectrometers ranging in wavelength from infra-red
to gamma-rays, an energetic particle counter and a magnetometer, to
gather further information on atmospheric circulation, cloud structure
and chemistry. The Venus flyby occurred on the 5th of this month, but as with most
NASA information, it will be awhile in getting back to the ‘common
people’. Galaxy News Reported June 4th, 2007.