Today, among the 50 projects, the UAE launched a new space mission … a mission to explore the planet Venus and 7 other asteroids in the solar system … and the first Arab landing on an asteroid at the end of the 3.6 billion . km journey (7 times the Hope Probe trip to Mars). pic.twitter.com/mUnB1fmyUu– HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) October 5, 2021
The planned asteroid mission was hailed by UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahayan.
The launch of a new project to explore Venus and the asteroid belt sets an ambitious new goal for our country’s budding space program. The UAE is determined to make a meaningful contribution to space research, scientific research and our understanding of the solar system. pic.twitter.com/bS7QJpK0KL– Mohammed bin Zayed (@MohamedBinZayed) October 5, 2021
“The launch of a new project to explore Venus and the asteroid belt sets an ambitious new goal for our country’s budding space program,” the Crown Prince tweeted.
“The UAE is determined to make a meaningful contribution to space research, scientific research and our understanding of the solar system.”
The planet is mysterious, with NASA noting it as characterized by “a thick, toxic atmosphere filled with carbon dioxide, and it is always shrouded in thick, yellowish clouds of sulfuric acid that trap heat and cause an ongoing greenhouse effect.” The air pressure on the planet is intense and is 90 times greater than what you can experience on the Earth’s surface – in fact, it is more comparable to the pressure found one kilometer below the sea. It is also the hottest planet in the solar system, with surface temperatures estimated by NASA to be around 475 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit), which can even melt lead.
Space organizations have previously sent probes to the planet, and it was first scanned by a NASA probe in 1962 and later explored by others. Some of these continued recently, such as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which has made several flybys of Venus in recent years. But landing missions are a different story. Both the United States and the Soviet Union previously attempted to land probes on the planet, but they never lasted long, with a NASA probe landing in 1978 that lasted only an hour under intense conditions.
Despite this, many scientists see significant value on the planet, and some even claim that microscopic life may exist in the atmosphere, although this is highly controversial.
In fact, both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have several planned Venus missions in the coming decade.
But landing on asteroids is a far more exciting prospect for some. Three nations have previously landed on asteroids, and many see them as possible sources of future mining, as these asteroids may be rich in raw materials.
Scientists continue to intensively study these objects, with NASA’s upcoming Lucy mission due to be launched on October 16, equipped with equipment to study more asteroids in the coming years.