Related papers: Synergies between Venus & Exoplanetary Observation…
After decades of relative neglect, interest in Venus surges anew in the planetary science community and the public. New missions are planned and selected, and will pave the way to the decade of Venus, as new observations allow us to uncover…
As we become aware of Earth's changing climate, and as we discover terrestrial planets in other solar systems, we gain ever more reasons to study the Earth's nearest neighbour and closest sibling, the only Earth-sized planet besides our own…
The current goals of the astrobiology community are focused on developing a framework for the detection of biosignatures, or evidence thereof, on objects inside and outside of our solar system. A fundamental aspect of understanding the…
Here, we evaluate our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus, as an exemplar of the runaway greenhouse state that bounds the inner edge of the habitable zone. Despite its current hellish surface environment, Venus may once have been habitable…
Over the past several decades, thousands of planets have been discovered outside of our Solar System. These planets exhibit enormous diversity, and their large numbers provide a statistical opportunity to place our Solar System within the…
Why are the terrestrial planets so different? Venus should be the most Earth-like of all our planetary neighbours. Its size, bulk composition and distance from the Sun are very similar to those of the Earth. Its original atmosphere was…
This is a white paper submitted to the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey. The deep atmosphere of Venus is largely unexplored and yet may harbor clues to the evolutionary pathways for a major silicate planet with implications…
Venus has regained attention on the international stage with the approval of three new missions by ESA and NASA. As the twin sister of Earth, Venus exhibits a distinct atmosphere, which casts a veil of mystery over the planetary evolution…
This review presents an insight into our current knowledge of the atmospheres of the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the satellite Titan, and those of exoplanets. It deals with the thermal structure, aerosol…
The planned launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018 will herald a new era of exoplanet spectroscopy. JWST will be the first telescope sensitive enough to potentially characterize terrestrial planets from their transmission spectra.…
Understanding the physical characteristics of Venus, including its atmosphere, interior, and its evolutionary pathway with respect to Earth, remains a vital component for terrestrial planet evolution models and the emergence and/or decline…
The exploration and study of exoplanets remain at the frontier of astronomical research, challenging scientists to continuously innovate and refine methodologies to navigate the vast, complex data these celestial bodies produce. This…
The key goals of the astrobiology community are to identify environments beyond Earth that may be habitable, and to search for signs of life in those environments. A fundamental aspect of understanding the limits of habitable environments…
Fifty years ago, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) built and flew the first successful spacecraft to another planet: Mariner 2 to Venus. This paper discusses the context of this mission at a crucial phase in the space race between the…
The study of planets outside our solar system may lead to major advances in our understanding of the Earth, and provide insight into the universal set of rules by which planets form and evolve. To achieve these goals requires applying…
Two decades ago, astronomers began detecting planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, so-called exoplanets. Since that time, the rate of detections and the sensitivity to ever-smaller planets has improved dramatically with several…
Telescope and detector developments continuously enable deeper and more detailed studies of astronomical objects. Larger collecting areas, improvement in dispersion and detector techniques, and higher sensitivities allow detection of more…
With the discovery of the first transiting extrasolar planetary system back to 1999, a great number of projects started to hunt for other similar systems. Because of the incidence rate of such systems was unknown and the length of the…
Started approximately in the late 1980s, exoplanetology has up to now unveiled the main gross bulk characteristics of planets and planetary systems. In the future it will benefit from more and more large telescopes and advanced space…
Measurements in the atmosphere and at the surface of Venus are required to understand fundamental processes of how terrestrial planets evolve and how they work today. While the European Venus community is unified in its support of the…