WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:10.143 --> 00:00:12.512 Venus is our sister planet. 2 00:00:12.512 --> 00:00:16.249 She's literally at sometimes during the year the closest thing to earth 3 00:00:16.349 --> 00:00:18.451 other than our natural satellite, the moon. 4 00:00:18.451 --> 00:00:22.355 And so she has a story to tell us of almost another earth, but different. 5 00:00:22.355 --> 00:00:26.593 And that divergent story of how she has such a massive atmosphere. 6 00:00:26.593 --> 00:00:29.896 And our planet is such a perfect place for people, is one 7 00:00:29.896 --> 00:00:31.464 we want to understand and tell. 8 00:00:31.464 --> 00:00:35.168 So when we see her in the night sky and often sometimes in the morning sky, 9 00:00:35.402 --> 00:00:40.240 we're mesmerized by what we don't know about this world so close to home. 10 00:00:40.540 --> 00:00:41.841 Is she like us? 11 00:00:41.841 --> 00:00:44.844 How did she grow up to be so different? 12 00:00:49.649 --> 00:00:52.819 We think Venus may have harbored liquid water oceans, 13 00:00:53.219 --> 00:00:56.956 perhaps for billions of years, or if not oceans, steamy atmospheres. 14 00:00:56.956 --> 00:01:00.160 Those stories of a world that should have been a lot like Earth. 15 00:01:00.627 --> 00:01:02.762 Connect us in space and time. 16 00:01:02.762 --> 00:01:05.765 Venus gives us a vantage point on what we don't want 17 00:01:05.765 --> 00:01:08.768 Earth to be and may tell the secrets of where Earth is going. 18 00:01:08.868 --> 00:01:12.338 So we're stunned by what she could tell us and can't wait to get back 19 00:01:18.978 --> 00:01:20.680 NASA now has plans 20 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:24.451 to send two missions to Venus and an instrument on another one 21 00:01:24.684 --> 00:01:27.720 to open our eyes to this world in this 21st 22 00:01:27.720 --> 00:01:30.890 century space age. New instruments, new capabilities. 23 00:01:31.124 --> 00:01:33.493 One of those missions will take the plunge 24 00:01:33.493 --> 00:01:36.896 into the atmosphere, bringing the chemistry lab to the samples 25 00:01:37.097 --> 00:01:40.533 to make measurements of the caliber we've been making on the surface of Mars. 26 00:01:40.700 --> 00:01:44.637 But for the Venus atmosphere, others will globally map this beautiful planet 27 00:01:44.904 --> 00:01:49.709 so we can compare Venus to Earth and use Venus as a clue to how we understand 28 00:01:49.909 --> 00:01:52.912 potential Venus like exoplanets. 29 00:01:57.350 --> 00:01:58.485 So our first mission back 30 00:01:58.485 --> 00:02:02.489 to Venus, the first one Back to Venus is big atmosphere, literally - 31 00:02:02.489 --> 00:02:06.559 an ocean of air is named for Leonardo da Vinci called DAVINCI. 32 00:02:06.860 --> 00:02:10.430 And this mission, while flying by Venus, will also set up 33 00:02:10.430 --> 00:02:14.400 two to allow a space vehicle that looks like a giant 34 00:02:15.768 --> 00:02:17.237 spherical submarine 35 00:02:17.237 --> 00:02:18.638 to descend through the atmosphere 36 00:02:18.638 --> 00:02:21.641 and make measurements all the way from the top of the clouds to the surface, 37 00:02:21.975 --> 00:02:25.945 collecting the secrets of whether Venus had oceans, the history of the atmosphere, 38 00:02:25.945 --> 00:02:29.382 its kinetics dynamics, whether there were volcanoes 39 00:02:29.382 --> 00:02:32.452 active recently, and then imaging all the way to the surface 40 00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:36.222 over a giant mountain range system, not unlike those here on Earth. 41 00:02:36.589 --> 00:02:39.792 Almost as big as the mountain ranges you find in places like Australia. 42 00:02:45.899 --> 00:02:47.500 So our sister Planet Venus 43 00:02:47.500 --> 00:02:51.638 has the largest atmosphere that is the ocean of air 44 00:02:51.638 --> 00:02:55.341 that's around it of of any of those around the rocky planets. 45 00:02:55.642 --> 00:02:58.645 That's Earth, Mars, Mercury, Venus and our moon. 46 00:02:58.811 --> 00:03:01.114 So this big ocean of air is the biggest. 47 00:03:01.114 --> 00:03:03.783 It's a thousand times bigger than that of our earth. 48 00:03:03.783 --> 00:03:06.753 And in it is a story that awaits to be told. 49 00:03:06.986 --> 00:03:09.289 And so going to that atmosphere ourselves, 50 00:03:09.289 --> 00:03:12.792 bringing the instruments of the 21st century that have worked at Mars 51 00:03:12.792 --> 00:03:15.828 and at the Saturn's moon Titan, that work in the Earth's atmosphere 52 00:03:16.062 --> 00:03:21.768 to study the Venus atmosphere up close and in person and personally will be epic. 53 00:03:21.768 --> 00:03:25.471 And then looking under the massive cloud deck at the shape of the mountains 54 00:03:25.471 --> 00:03:29.442 and what they're made of as we descend closer to the surface, as we would say 55 00:03:29.442 --> 00:03:32.946 in a helicopter on Earth, we can do all that with this first mission 56 00:03:33.112 --> 00:03:36.549 and open our eyes to the Venus that we have not really yet 57 00:03:36.749 --> 00:03:37.850 gotten to know very well. 58 00:03:43.823 --> 00:03:46.859 Our engineering team on this first mission known as DAVINCI, 59 00:03:47.160 --> 00:03:50.463 are basically sealing out the environment of this Venus atmosphere 60 00:03:50.697 --> 00:03:54.067 from the top of the clouds where it's cold and the winds are swirling 61 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:58.271 to the deep atmosphere where it's super hot, hotter than the back of a pizza oven. 62 00:03:58.538 --> 00:04:02.008 And pressure is equivalent to being almost a kilometer deep in the ocean. 63 00:04:02.008 --> 00:04:03.643 That's where big submarines go. 64 00:04:03.643 --> 00:04:06.646 We have to be able to transit all of those environments 65 00:04:06.713 --> 00:04:11.384 in about an hour in this space vehicle that protects priceless instruments 66 00:04:11.551 --> 00:04:14.754 so they can make measurements, collect samples, collect images, 67 00:04:14.954 --> 00:04:15.755 measure environments. 68 00:04:15.755 --> 00:04:17.390 And we have the tools now, 69 00:04:17.390 --> 00:04:22.161 thanks to the technology of the 21st century, to bring all that up 70 00:04:22.161 --> 00:04:25.632 close and in person to allow us to explore Venus in new ways, ways 71 00:04:25.865 --> 00:04:29.168 that are more advanced than we were able in the eighties, in the seventies. 72 00:04:34.674 --> 00:04:36.242 Getting to know Venus as the 73 00:04:36.242 --> 00:04:39.879 kind of exoplanet we may be able to detect and study in depth 74 00:04:40.246 --> 00:04:44.183 with NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope is a wonderful opportunity 75 00:04:44.384 --> 00:04:47.487 to have planetary ground truth on a world 76 00:04:47.487 --> 00:04:50.490 that has a big hot atmosphere close to a sun. 77 00:04:50.723 --> 00:04:53.660 Relative to those, those exoplanets will be discovering 78 00:04:53.660 --> 00:04:56.663 with James Webb that we're already looking at with that telescope. 79 00:04:56.696 --> 00:05:00.199 So by learning about Venus up close and her workings from the cloud tops 80 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:03.936 down to the surface, we can understand what James Webb may discover 81 00:05:04.203 --> 00:05:07.974 as that great vehicle of exploration explores exoplanets 82 00:05:08.274 --> 00:05:11.844 that may be Venus like and perhaps more Venus like that Earth like, 83 00:05:12.145 --> 00:05:15.114 because Venuses will be easier to see with Webb. 84 00:05:19.485 --> 00:05:21.888 And so by getting to know Venus, the planet that grew 85 00:05:21.888 --> 00:05:26.059 a big atmosphere relative to the Mars, the planet has a paltry tiny one. 86 00:05:26.359 --> 00:05:27.593 We can sort of look at the 87 00:05:27.593 --> 00:05:30.897 at the bookends and see where we fit in and where we might be going. 88 00:05:31.397 --> 00:05:35.401 Venus may be a tale of an earth like planet that became, that lost 89 00:05:35.702 --> 00:05:40.840 its habitability, which is a fragile idea of how life can gain a foothold. 90 00:05:41.140 --> 00:05:44.410 So we want to understand that at Venus and look at Mars 91 00:05:44.410 --> 00:05:47.914 and the ancient records of possible life or not on that world. 92 00:05:48.114 --> 00:05:50.450 So these three planets are the best things. 93 00:05:50.450 --> 00:05:55.221 We have to get to know how our planet fits into this beautiful solar system 94 00:05:55.388 --> 00:05:57.757 and even beyond. So that's why Venus matters. 95 00:06:04.097 --> 00:06:06.099 what we've seen with the missions of the nineties, 96 00:06:06.099 --> 00:06:09.769 like the Magellan radar mapper, that Venus has a lot of volcanoes 97 00:06:10.036 --> 00:06:12.305 and that's how planets get rid of their heat. 98 00:06:12.305 --> 00:06:15.308 Earth does that a lot underwater through the mid-ocean ridges. 99 00:06:15.375 --> 00:06:17.510 Venus does that apparently almost everywhere. 100 00:06:17.510 --> 00:06:18.311 So we want to see 101 00:06:18.311 --> 00:06:22.181 whether any of those volcanoes are active, because in all honesty, they should be. 102 00:06:22.482 --> 00:06:24.083 That's the way planets work. 103 00:06:24.083 --> 00:06:28.488 So we want to test that idea using not only what we can see as Venus changes, 104 00:06:28.688 --> 00:06:31.958 but what the chemistry of what those volcanic eruptions could be like. 105 00:06:32.225 --> 00:06:35.895 If we can read those signatures through the kind of chemical measurements 106 00:06:35.895 --> 00:06:40.032 we can make by bringing the chemistry lab to Venus to see whether 107 00:06:40.032 --> 00:06:43.336 she's active today or was recently active, that will change everything. 108 00:06:43.503 --> 00:06:46.839 Having another volcanically active planet just next door. 109 00:06:47.073 --> 00:06:48.074 Just imagine that. 110 00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:55.281 So to learn more, 111 00:06:55.281 --> 00:06:58.651 we can go to websites like NASA.gov slash Venus. 112 00:06:59.118 --> 00:07:02.688 Alternately, you can go to Solar System, dot nasa.gov, slash Venus 113 00:07:03.089 --> 00:07:07.226 to see more about these missions NASA will be launching in the next ten years, 114 00:07:07.827 --> 00:07:11.531 bringing us all up close to Venus and making it a personal experience. 115 00:07:11.798 --> 00:07:14.834 Come with us. Let's discover Venus together.