Venus has a harsh climate, so spacecraft can only survive for a very short time after landing.
Venus is considered the hottest planet in the Solar System. Due to its extreme climate, human exploration of this planet is still quite limited.
While spacecraft are continually sending more images from Mars, high-quality images of Venus’s surface are very limited.
In fact, the best images of Venus’s surface were taken in the early 1980s by Soviet probes. In the space exploration industry, 40 years is a long time.
Venus’s surface captured by Venera 14 on March 5, 1982, processed by Donald Mitchell and Jason Major. (Image: PetaPixel).
The Nemesis of Spacecraft
Venus is located about 200 million kilometers from Earth, which is 19 million kilometers farther than the distance from Earth to Mars.
In addition to its harsh climate, Venus also attracts attention due to its size being similar to Earth, as both are rocky planets. As a result, many refer to Venus as the “sister planet” of Earth.
Image of Venus’s surface taken by the Venera 9 and Venera 10 probes. (Image: Russian Academy of Sciences).
Humans have attempted several missions to explore Venus, but most have ended in failure. Of the first nine missions, only the 1962 flight using the Mariner 2 probe from NASA was successful.
At that time, Mariner 2 flew within about 32,000 kilometers of Venus’s surface to survey basic parameters.
The first spacecraft to land on Venus was in 1966 when the Venera 3 probe from the Soviet Union crashed onto the planet’s surface after days of lost contact.
By 1970, the Venera 7 spacecraft successfully landed on Venus and continued transmitting data back to Earth. Two years later, the Soviet Union sent the Venera 8 to land on Venus.
Images of Venus taken by NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft in 1974 (left) and processed images (right). (Image: NASA).
In 1975, the Venera 9 also achieved a similar feat. According to PetaPixel, the Soviet Union sent an additional nine spacecraft to Venus, with the last one, Vega 2, landing in 1984.
NASA has also conducted missions to explore Venus, such as the Pioneer Venus 2 in 1978 to survey the atmosphere. To date, this agency has not successfully landed any spacecraft on Venus’s surface.
The Harsh Atmosphere
According to The Planetary Society, the clearest images of Venus’s surface were taken in the early 1980s by the Venera 9, Venera 10, Venera 13, and Venera 14 spacecraft.
In addition to black and white and color images, there are also processed images with a straight horizon contributed by the space exploration community.
Images taken by the Venera 13 probe. (Image: Russian Academy of Sciences).
The heat and pressure of Venus’s atmosphere create its harsh climate, with surface temperatures ranging from 437 to 482 degrees Celsius. In contrast, the average surface temperature of Mars is -63 degrees Celsius, which is much easier for spacecraft engineers to handle.
The atmospheric pressure on Venus is 75 times that of Earth. Thus, if a spacecraft does not burn up, it will be crushed. Venera 13 holds the record for the longest survival on Venus’s surface at 127 minutes.
The dense atmosphere of Venus makes it impossible for humans to observe the surface from space, at least in the visible spectrum. Therefore, the only way to see Venus’s surface is to land on it.
Images taken by the Venera 14 probe. (Image: Russian Academy of Sciences).
Although no spacecraft has landed on Venus recently, NASA’s Mariner 2 was the first spacecraft to fly by a planet beyond Earth.
With a 42-minute survey time, scientists discovered many details about Venus, including its extremely hot atmosphere.
NASA is developing DAVINCI, a spacecraft expected to approach Venus’s atmosphere in 2031, with two follow-up missions planned shortly thereafter. DAVINCI will focus on surveying the atmosphere and surface of the planet.
By that time, there will still be a long way to go before humans can admire clearer images of Venus’s surface.
