Synergies Between Venus &amp; Exoplanetary Observations

Way, Michael; Ostberg, Colby; Foley, Bradford J.; Gillmann, C.; Höning, Dennis; Lämmer, H.; O’Rourke, J. G.; Persson, Moa; Plesa, Ana‐Catalina; Salvador, Arnaud; Scherf, Manuel; Weller, M. B.

doi:10.1007/s11214-023-00953-3

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 417 publications

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“…Finally, the atmosphere is the easiest part of a Venus-like exoplanet to observe. Way et al (2022b) review the prospects for characterizing such distant worldsand how studies of exoplanets and the Earth/Venus dichotomy inform and feed into each other.…”

Section: How the Atmosphere May Have Evolvedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Venus, the Planet: Introduction to the Evolution of Earth’s Sister Planet

et al. 2023

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Venus is the planet in the Solar System most similar to Earth in terms of size and (probably) bulk composition. Until the mid-20th century, scientists thought that Venus was a verdant world—inspiring science-fictional stories of heroes battling megafauna in sprawling jungles. At the start of the Space Age, people learned that Venus actually has a hellish surface, baked by the greenhouse effect under a thick, CO2-rich atmosphere. In popular culture, Venus was demoted from a jungly playground to (at best) a metaphor for the redemptive potential of extreme adversity. However, whether Venus was much different in the past than it is today remains unknown. In this review, we show how now-popular models for the evolution of Venus mirror how the scientific understanding of modern Venus has changed over time. Billions of years ago, Venus could have had a clement surface with water oceans. Venus perhaps then underwent at least one dramatic transition in atmospheric, surface, and interior conditions before present day. This review kicks off a topical collection about all aspects of Venus’s evolution and how understanding Venus can teach us about other planets, including exoplanets. Here we provide the general background and motivation required to delve into the other manuscripts in this collection. Finally, we discuss how our ignorance about the evolution of Venus motivated the prioritization of new spacecraft missions that will rediscover Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor—beginning a new age of Venus exploration.

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Section: How the Atmosphere May Have Evolvedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Venus, the Planet: Introduction to the Evolution of Earth’s Sister Planet

et al. 2023

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“…The TESS VZ planets are of particular interest as their host stars are much brighter than those of Kepler planets, making TESS planets more amenable to atmospheric spectroscopy with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) or other future facilities (Louie et al 2018;Stassun et al 2019). Various studies have modeled the transmission spectra of potential exoVenuses and predicted the efficiency at which JWST could observe them (e.g., Ehrenreich et al 2012;Lincowski et al 2018;Lustig-Yaeger et al 2019a, 2019bWay et al 2023). Obtaining information from an exoVenus atmosphere will be a challenging endeavor however, as Venus-like clouds and hazes may prevent the detection of molecular species, or an atmosphere at all (e.g., Ehrenreich et al 2006;Fauchez et al 2019;Barstow 2020;Komacek et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reading Between the Lines: Investigating the Ability of JWST to Identify Discerning Features in exoEarth and exoVenus Transmission Spectra

Ostberg,

Kane,

Lincowski

et al. 2023

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The success of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission has led to the discovery of an abundance of Venus Zone terrestrial planets that orbit relatively bright host stars. Atmospheric observations of these planets play a crucial role in understanding the evolutionary history of terrestrial planets, past habitable states, and the divergence of Venus and Earth climates. The transmission spectrum of a Venus-like exoplanet can be difficult to distinguish from that of an Earthlike exoplanet however, which could severely limit what can be learned from studying exoVenuses. In this work we further investigate differences in transmission between hypothetical exoEarths and exoVenuses, both with varying amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The exoEarths and exoVenuses were modeled assuming they orbit TRAPPIST-1 on the runaway greenhouse boundary. We simulated James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Spectrograph PRISM transit observations of both sets of planets between 0.6 and 5.2 μm, and quantified the detectability of major absorption features in their transmission spectra. The exoEarth spectra include several large methane (CH4) features that can be detected in as few as six transits. The CH4 feature at 3.4 μm is the optimal for feature for discerning an exoEarth from an exoVenus since it is easily detectable and does not overlap with CO2 features. The sulfur dioxide (SO2) feature at 4.0 μm is the best indicator of an exoVenus, but it is detectable in atmospheres with reduced CO2 abundance.

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“…

Venus is a natural laboratory for studying the atmosphere of a non-Earth-like planet. While Venus is unique among terrestrial planets in our Solar System, it is an analogue to a common class of exoplanets (e.g., Kane et al, 2019;Way et al, 2023). For example, Venus's present-day atmosphere is far more massive than the atmospheres of Earth and Mars (e.g., Taylor et al, 2018)-dominated by carbon dioxide and perpetually shrouded in clouds rich in droplets of sulfuric acid at altitudes from ∼47 to 70 km (e.g., Titov et al, 2018).

…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Meteors May Masquerade as Lightning in the Atmosphere of Venus

Blaske,

O'Rourke,

Desch

et al. 2023

JGR Planets

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Lightning in the atmosphere of Venus is either ubiquitous, rare, or non‐existent, depending on how one interprets diverse observations. Quantifying when and where, or even if lightning occurs would provide novel information about Venus’s atmospheric dynamics and chemistry. Lightning is also a potential risk to future missions, which could float in the cloud layers (∼50–70 km above the surface) for up to an Earth‐year. Over decades, spacecraft and ground‐based telescopes have searched for lightning at Venus using many instruments, including magnetometers, radios, and optical cameras. Two optical surveys (from the Akatsuki orbiter and the 61‐inch telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona) observed several flashes at 777 nm (the unresolved triplet emission lines of excited atomic oxygen) that have been attributed to lightning. This conclusion is based, in part, on the statistical unlikelihood of so many meteors producing such energetic flashes, based in turn on the presumption that a low fraction (< 1%) of a meteor’s optical energy is emitted at 777 nm. We use observations of terrestrial meteors and analogue experiments to show that a much higher conversion factor (∼5–10%) should be expected. Therefore, we calculate that smaller, more numerous meteoroids could have caused the observed flashes. Lightning is likely too rare to pose a hazard to missions that pass through or dwell in the clouds of Venus. Likewise, small meteoroids burn up at altitudes of ∼100 km, roughly twice as high above the surface as the clouds, and also would not pose a hazard.

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Synergies Between Venus & Exoplanetary Observations

Cited by 9 publications

References 417 publications

Venus, the Planet: Introduction to the Evolution of Earth’s Sister Planet

Venus, the Planet: Introduction to the Evolution of Earth’s Sister Planet

Reading Between the Lines: Investigating the Ability of JWST to Identify Discerning Features in exoEarth and exoVenus Transmission Spectra

Meteors May Masquerade as Lightning in the Atmosphere of Venus

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