Most recently, in 2021, NASA announced two new missions to Venus that will launch by 2030.

The agency announced June 2, 2021 that they will be sending missions DAVINCI+ and
VERITAS, chosen from a shortlist of four spacecraft, for the next round of Discovery missions
to Venus. 

DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry and Imaging) will
dive through the planet's atmosphere, studying how it changes over time. VERITAS (Venus
Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy) will map the planet's surface
from its orbit using radar. 

IS THERE LIFE ON VENUS?

Scientists have detected the strange chemical phosphine in Venus clouds, shown here in the an artist's illustration, a potential
signature for life. (Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser/L. Calçada & NASA/JPL/Caltech)
While destinations in our solar system like the moons Enceladus or Titan or even planet Mars are
currently the go-to spots to search for signs of extraterrestrial life. 

But a breakthrough scientific discovery in 2020 suddenly had scientists discussing whether or
not it was possible that life could somehow exist in the present-day hellish atmospheres of
Venus. 

Now, scientists think that it is most likely that, billions of years ago, Venus could have been
habitable and fairly similar to current-day Earth. But since then, it has undergone a drastic
greenhouse effect that has resulted in Venus' current iteration with scorching surface
temperatures and an atmosphere that many describe as "hellish." 

However, in 2020, scientists revealed the discovery of a strange chemical in the planet's clouds
that some think could be a sign of life: phosphine. 

Phosphine is a chemical compound that has been seen on Earth as well as Jupiter and Saturn.
Scientists think that, on Venus, it could appear as it does on Earth, for very short amounts of time
in the planet's atmosphere. 

But what does this phosphine discovery have to do with the search for life? 

Well, while phosphine exists in strange ways like as rat poison, it has also been spotted alongside
groups of certain microorganisms and some scientists think that, on Earth, the compound is
actually produced by microbes as they decay chemically. 

This has caused some to suspect that, if microbes could, in fact, create phosphine, then perhaps
microbes might be responsible for the phosphine in Venus' atmosphere. Since the discovery there
have been followup analyses that have made some doubt whether or not the compound is created
by microbes, but scientists are continuing to investigate, especially with new missions planned
for the planet. 
This article was updated on July 8, 2021 by Space.com senior writer Chelsea Gohd.
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