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-Welcome to exploration
in the 2020s.

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We're going to send women
to the moon,

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and we're going to
return samples from Mars.

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And we're about
to launch humanity's

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greatest space telescope --
the James Webb.

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And in this time
of looking back to look forward,

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I want to look out
to the planet Venus.

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And I want to take you there
through the eyes of an explorer

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and through what I think
will matter to people.

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Some of us think of Venus
as the missing link.

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But before I go there,
I want to remind you

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why we explore beyond Earth.

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In these very difficult times
here on our planet Earth,

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on our spaceship, why, as we
look at our beautiful --

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our beautiful spaceship,
planet Earth,

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do we need to think
of the bigger context in space?

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And I like to share this
as I begin

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because it kind of connects us
all to the bigger cosmos...

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because as we look at space
and our place in space,

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we're reminded that
it colors our lives,

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the history of life on Earth,
every second of every day.

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And how we're here, why we're
here is part of that journey.

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And so, it's been said by
some -- I'm just quoting them --

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that single-planet species
don't survive.

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So as we extend
ourselves into space

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and learn from our
neighboring planets like Venus,

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we're exploring,
like many of you

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who explore
the great places on Earth.

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So, let's go to Venus.
You can see her in the night sky

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if you're looking out at night
on a clear night right now.

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She's the second-brightest
object.

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Historically significant,

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and she is a planet
with a story yet untold.

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And so I hope tonight
I can fill in some of the gaps

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and tell you why some of us are
just so passionate about Venus.

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A planet with
an atmosphere so big,

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we think it's the record
book of that planet.

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It's the fingerprints of
the history of another world

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just like our own.

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So, let's go back 500 years
for a minute.

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Remember that, 500 years ago,

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while da Vinci was finishing
his great opuses

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in art
and science and technology,

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while Magellan was starting his
grand voyage around the Earth,

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the first orbit, we, in
that heyday of the Renaissance,

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were just thinking
about our world in new ways.

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And 470 years later,

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NASA's mission known as Magellan

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mapped the planet Venus
using exquisite technologies,

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putting a face on Venus that
was otherwise covered by clouds.

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And, today, we're getting ready
in the next year

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or so to launch telescopes
that will take

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the taste of atmospheres
of planets around other stars.

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And for that, some of us think,

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I think in the spirit
of da Vinci and Magellan,

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that we need to think
about our own Venus, too,

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because she may
help us understand

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what we see out there
in deep space.

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So come with me
as we think about Venus,

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because we live here on Earth

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on a profoundly magical
ocean planet.

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We're going back
to the moon with women,

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with robots, with commercial.

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We're going to bring samples
back from Mars

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to ask the questions
"Are we alone?"

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So why should we worry
about Venus?

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I think because Venus
is that special place

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that we haven't thought
about enough.

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Sometimes
there's a missing link.

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And I would like
to submit to you tonight

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that as we prepare
for these great voyages

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of people to new places

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and to new places on Earth, that
we should think about Venus.

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So, here we are on our
biocentric world, Earth.

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It's a pale blue dot
to astronomers, perhaps.

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It's an ocean world.

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And next to us
is Venus on one side,

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inbound from Earth toward
the sun, and Mars looking out.

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And Mars is definitely
a future home,

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a place where we will go
with women and men.

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Spacecraft are there now,
the Curiosity rover.

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But what about Venus?

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And I think we're beginning to
hope beyond just magical musings

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that Venus was a world
that may have had life.

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I'm sorry. May have had oceans,
prospects for being habitable,

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some scientists think
even life, and a story

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that needs to be connected
to our own and Mars...

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because here, on Earth,
we know our planet

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has been a life-bearing world
for billions of years.

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But on Venus, that record,
if it ever existed,

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may tell us about
a similar pathway, a destiny.

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And so, for some of us,
what's happening to Venus today,

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versus what happened
a billion years ago

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before the dinosaurs in that
microbial stage of Earth life --

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What happened to Venus
3 billion years ago

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may be important ingredients

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into how life works
in our universe.

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So let's take a voyage.

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Now, to me, as a scientist,

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and many of my colleagues,
we have a Venus problem.

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And I mean that in the sense

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that what we think
we know about Venus

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is a patchwork, a quilt work of
glimmers of wonderful things,

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stories that
would support oceans,

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active crust, volcanoes,
habitable atmospheres,

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but none of them are complete.
It's sort of half-baked.

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So, let's take that voyage now
and see what we can learn.

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So, first,
I got to remind you --

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I mean, we're talking
about the Renaissance here,

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500 years ago --
Why are we so fascinated?

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Partly because
you can't miss Venus.

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If you see the moon
and you look up

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and you see the next
brightest thing,

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very often, when she's visible,
it's Venus.

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She wanders across the sky,

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often the brightest thing
you see when there's a new moon.

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There is no moon,
so we see Venus.

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And she wanders around the sky
from the morning start

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to the night start
in a resonance with Earth.

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And, of course, the great
artists of the Renaissance

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painted the Venus
from the art take.

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So Venus is kind of
part of our DNA.

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And we see
the history of Venus

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the way we will look
for planets around nearby stars.

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Several years ago,
Venus transited our sun,

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and we saw -- You see that black
circle there with the red arrow.

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That's Venus
going across our sun.

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If we were a telescope in orbit
around Proxima Centauri Beta

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and you looked, then
you could track that transit

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and measure the chemistry
of the Venus atmosphere,

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which is what we do now
as we look for exoplanets.

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So Venus is there to see
in all of her glory.

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And she's a big planet.
She's Earth-sized.

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She's an Earth-sized planet.

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Earth-sized in mass,
almost in density.

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She has a very peculiar
pattern around the sun.

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Her day is longer than a year.

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She rotates backwards relative

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to Earth and Mars
and the planets.

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No seasons,
she sits straight up like a top,

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and no magnetic field.

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She's really
the atmosphere planet.

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And when you look
at her atmosphere,

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today, it's a hothouse
run amuck.

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A pressure cooker at the surface
with temperatures

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that are like your pizza oven.

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The atmosphere is toxic --

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carbon dioxide, a little bit
of nitrogen and argon,

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a little, tiny bit
of water vapor.

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If you were on
the surface of Venus today,

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it would be like being
in a submarine

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half a mile deep in the ocean.

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The winds in the atmosphere,
where the clouds are, 50,

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60 kilometers up. swirl around
like a giant jet stream,

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always moving west,

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moving faster
than its rotation rate.

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And at the surface, though,

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it's like the tranquil
deeps of the ocean.

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So, we don't know anything about

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that lower 100,000 feet
of that Venus atmosphere.

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Everything we have are glimmers

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from missions
from the '70s and '80s.

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We know the cloud deck
is corrosive,

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and we know that at the surface,
you wouldn't see the sun,

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but it would be like
a really cloudy day.

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So, this is the Venus
we know today.

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Very exciting, very mysterious.

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In fact, more like your oven
than you might imagine.

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So, today, 60 degrees here
in the eastern United States.

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The surface temperature
on Venus is, you know,

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870 Fahrenheit. 450 centigrade.

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Really not a place
we can imagine going.

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And yet we're hungry
to understand that Venus,

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because we've been confused
by her throughout history.

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TV shows 50 years ago

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painted Venus as a swamp
with crazy aliens.

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Now, when you look at Venus
from the standpoint

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of what it might seem
if you were standing there,

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this is the rogues' gallery of
planetary panoramas.

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On the left, you see Venus

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as studied by the Soviet landers
of the '80s.

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And then we see
our ocean planet,

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our beautiful moon, where women
and men will be going back.

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The Mars planet, where we seek
signs of "are we alone?"

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And Titan, where a mission
known as Dragonfly will go.

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Look at Venus.

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It's a very different world.

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And we've really only seen it
up close

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four times in the history
of women and men.

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So, the other thing about Venus
that's really peculiar

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and kind of a neat, fun fact if
you're playing "Jeopardy!"

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or any other games is,
that lowermost atmosphere

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the lower 50,000 feet
of the Venus atmosphere,

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is not a gas
like you and I know.

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It's not steam.

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It's not the kind of
carbon dioxide you'd find

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when dry ice sublimates.

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It is a supercritical gas

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that's under such pressure
and temperature,

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it acts more like a fluid.

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It's only 14 times
less dense than water.

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It could actually
conceivably carve channels

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the way density currents
do in the ocean.

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This is the Venus
we have to get to know.

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It's an engineering challenge.

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And it's, I think, within reach
as the people of this planet.

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So, the big question --

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Venus and Earth
are the same size

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in the same neighborhood of this
special solar system we live in.

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Why are they so different?

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And everything points to Venus,
a climate state run amuck,

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a planet that you wouldn't
want to walk on or live on,

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and our beautiful,
habitable Earth.

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Why did they work differently?

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Why did Mother Nature give us
this control experiment nearby?

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That's the big question.
How can we tell?

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We've mapped Venus with radar.

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We've been there with probes.
The last U.S. probe -- in 1978.

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So it's interesting
when you think about that,

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because very often
when we look at Venus,

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do a Google search on Venus,

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you'll come up with
beautiful artists' pictures

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of what it might look like.

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These kind of landscapes
that look vaguely like places

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we would know in Iceland
and the Azores,

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the seafloor, with mountains
looming in the misty distances.

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Venus is still an artscape,
an art project.

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Hence some connection
to Leonardo da Vinci

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for people like me.

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We want to change that.

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We want to make it
an exploration scape

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where we can imagine going.

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And over the last 60 years,
40 missions have gone to Venus.

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the first by the Soviet Union.

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Visited the surface for the
first time in the '70s.

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Our one mission to the
atmosphere of Venus was in 1978.

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It was a Multiprobe/Orbiter
mission known as Pioneer Venus,

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and its big probe
transited the atmosphere,

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but was unfortunately

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not completely
successful in its transit

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in making
the measurements that we need.

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The Soviet landers, the Veneras
and Vegas, landed on Venus

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in the '70s and '80s,
and they provided our data

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00:10:44.800 --> 00:10:46.720
that we use to
look up close at Venus.

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00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:49.760
I was lucky enough to work
with colleagues in Russia

247
00:10:49.760 --> 00:10:53.000
then, Soviet Union, in part
of my PhD thesis.

248
00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:56.640
Our own mission named after
the Portuguese explorer Magellan

249
00:10:56.640 --> 00:10:58.840
mapped Venus from orbit
in the '90s,

250
00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:01.120
and we have not been back since.

251
00:11:01.120 --> 00:11:03.120
This is the planet
whose exploration history

252
00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:04.360
is incomplete.

253
00:11:04.360 --> 00:11:06.720
This view
is an artist's rendering

254
00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:08.960
we commissioned in 1986

255
00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:12.000
after the last
landing spacecraft on Venus

256
00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:14.440
from the Soviet Union,
known as Vega 2.

257
00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:17.000
And this is it.
It landed on the night side

258
00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:19.480
in the dusky dark of that world,

259
00:11:19.480 --> 00:11:21.840
where we think
the surface may even glow.

260
00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:23.280
So, no one's been back since.

261
00:11:23.280 --> 00:11:26.600
35 years -- no missions
to the surface of Venus,

262
00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:28.200
no missions to the atmosphere.

263
00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:31.000
And yet we have the tools

264
00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:34.200
to see that world in a way
that will pop like Mars,

265
00:11:34.200 --> 00:11:36.800
like Titan, like other worlds,
like the moon.

266
00:11:36.800 --> 00:11:38.640
Now, I had to show
this picture to show

267
00:11:38.640 --> 00:11:41.080
that I've sort of been
thinking about Venus

268
00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:42.440
perhaps way too long.

269
00:11:42.440 --> 00:11:45.600
This is a spacecraft
known as Venera 13,

270
00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:47.720
a model from a museum
in Moscow.

271
00:11:47.720 --> 00:11:50.160
And next to it is
a graduate student with, um,

272
00:11:50.160 --> 00:11:51.800
I will admit, pretty poor shoes,

273
00:11:51.800 --> 00:11:55.640
perhaps not the best clothing.

274
00:11:55.640 --> 00:11:59.040
But why did students
like me across the ages,

275
00:11:59.040 --> 00:12:01.240
actually, the last decades,
care?

276
00:12:01.240 --> 00:12:03.120
Was it the wonder
of exploration?

277
00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:06.200
The discovery possibility?
Our curiosity?

278
00:12:06.200 --> 00:12:07.720
The need for better clothes?

279
00:12:07.720 --> 00:12:10.480
I don't know. But these missions
in the '70s and '80s

280
00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.680
gave us the hope
that we could get to Venus.

281
00:12:13.680 --> 00:12:16.680
These four pictures
are the sum total

282
00:12:16.680 --> 00:12:20.000
of the backyard-sized views
of the surface of Venus

283
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.920
collected by the Soviet Union
in the '70s and '80s.

284
00:12:23.920 --> 00:12:27.320
They show landscapes, we
believe, that could be volcanic,

285
00:12:27.320 --> 00:12:30.680
the way those are on
the ocean floor of Earth.

286
00:12:30.680 --> 00:12:32.720
They are very different
than things we've seen

287
00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:33.840
on other worlds.

288
00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:35.760
They don't look like the moon.

289
00:12:35.760 --> 00:12:37.560
You can even see the bust
of Lenin in the pictures

290
00:12:37.560 --> 00:12:40.960
in lower scale
in that little pentagon

291
00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:43.040
in honor of the Soviet voyages.

292
00:12:43.040 --> 00:12:45.840
None of these missions lasted
for more than a couple hours.

293
00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:47.280
But this is our data.

294
00:12:47.280 --> 00:12:50.960
This is what showed us
the Venus at human scale.

295
00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:52.600
Some of us think
it's time to go back.

296
00:12:52.600 --> 00:12:54.920
Meanwhile, in the United States,

297
00:12:54.920 --> 00:12:57.440
anchored by great questions
coming out of the '70s and '80s,

298
00:12:57.440 --> 00:13:01.560
we mapped Venus exquisitely
with the Magellan Radar Mapper,

299
00:13:01.560 --> 00:13:03.440
built at NASA's JPL.

300
00:13:03.440 --> 00:13:06.320
Its mission --
in the course of 3 1/2 years,

301
00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:10.040
map Venus at 100-meter scale,
the scale of a football field,

302
00:13:10.040 --> 00:13:11.360
a soccer pitch.

303
00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:12.960
Named for Magellan,
the great explorer

304
00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:14.960
who did the first orbit
of Earth.

305
00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:17.960
Magellan showed us Venus,
the hills and dales,

306
00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:20.720
the rolling plains that make up
most of the surface,

307
00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:23.640
the mountains, places that
are amongst the most exotic

308
00:13:23.640 --> 00:13:25.040
in our solar system.

309
00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:27.200
It showed us Venus
is an interesting world

310
00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:31.000
that doesn't follow
our terrestrial playbook.

311
00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:34.440
And so, this radar view
shows areas that are low in blue

312
00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:36.360
and high in reds and whites.

313
00:13:36.360 --> 00:13:39.880
It's colored by how radio waves
see through the clouds

314
00:13:39.880 --> 00:13:41.560
to see the surface.

315
00:13:41.560 --> 00:13:43.680
One of the most exciting
places on Venus

316
00:13:43.680 --> 00:13:46.160
is the high mountains of Maxwell

317
00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:48.440
in the region
known as Ishtar Terra.

318
00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:52.360
Some of us think of Ishtar
as the Tibetan Plateau of Venus.

319
00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:56.080
This is a region on Venus
about the size of Australia.

320
00:13:56.080 --> 00:13:58.160
It sits at 60 degrees north.

321
00:13:58.160 --> 00:13:59.800
And it's notable
for its high mountains,

322
00:13:59.800 --> 00:14:01.800
known as Maxwell Montes,

323
00:14:01.800 --> 00:14:05.480
which rise 11 kilometers
above the plains.

324
00:14:05.480 --> 00:14:07.480
That's taller
than Mount Everest,

325
00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:10.360
than Mauna Kea
is from the seafloor.

326
00:14:10.360 --> 00:14:13.680
And these mountains may be
coated with unique minerals.

327
00:14:13.680 --> 00:14:17.320
They may be formed very
dynamically, but we don't know.

328
00:14:17.320 --> 00:14:20.000
Our views are from Magellan
and other orbiters,

329
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:22.200
not from being there.

330
00:14:22.200 --> 00:14:24.800
This is the kind of enigma
of Venus.

331
00:14:24.800 --> 00:14:27.040
For Mars,
we know the big mountains.

332
00:14:27.040 --> 00:14:29.040
We're learning about them
on Pluto even,

333
00:14:29.040 --> 00:14:30.840
but not so much for Venus.

334
00:14:30.840 --> 00:14:33.720
The volcanoes of Venus
are just unbelievable.

335
00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:36.200
Maat Mons, one of the big
granddaddies of them all,

336
00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:40.000
rises over 5 kilometers,
15.000 feet.

337
00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:42.760
It looks a little bit
like the Kilimanjaro of Venus.

338
00:14:42.760 --> 00:14:46.520
This radar map, in perspective
of Maat Mons, attests

339
00:14:46.520 --> 00:14:49.200
to the fact that it may be
a kind of hotspot volcano,

340
00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:52.520
perhaps operating like Hawaii
on the Earth.

341
00:14:52.520 --> 00:14:55.600
But, again, we don't know.
Are these volcanoes active?

342
00:14:55.600 --> 00:14:57.040
What could they tell us

343
00:14:57.040 --> 00:14:58.440
through the lens
of the atmosphere?

344
00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:01.400
Do they leave
their gas signature?

345
00:15:01.400 --> 00:15:04.560
When we study Venus,
it's kind of like CSI does Venus

346
00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:06.880
with our forensic tools.

347
00:15:06.880 --> 00:15:10.600
So, what we've learned about
Venus over the last 50 years

348
00:15:10.600 --> 00:15:13.000
is, it doesn't follow
our playbook.

349
00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:17.000
It does not have an intricate
network of plates

350
00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:18.600
that jumble and jostle,

351
00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:22.200
producing the kind of mountain
ranges of the Andes,

352
00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:25.480
the volcanic island chains
of the Hawaiian, the Tonga,

353
00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:27.680
that produce all the beautiful
things we know of.

354
00:15:27.680 --> 00:15:30.960
Of course, the Tibetan Plateau
and the Himalayas.

355
00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:32.400
Doesn't work that way.

356
00:15:32.400 --> 00:15:35.160
It may have at one point,
but it doesn't today.

357
00:15:35.160 --> 00:15:39.120
It's a planet that may operate
more like a one-plate planet,

358
00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:42.200
where its crustal motions
are different.

359
00:15:42.200 --> 00:15:43.600
Maybe they once were like
Earth's,

360
00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:45.840
but the record today
is different.

361
00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:47.960
It's also a world
with landscapes

362
00:15:47.960 --> 00:15:50.680
that are pretty exotic,
almost enigmatic.

363
00:15:50.680 --> 00:15:52.160
We see most of the surface

364
00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:54.720
seems to look like
the kind of volcanic plains

365
00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:58.080
we know on Earth, we know
on the moon, we know on Mars.

366
00:15:58.080 --> 00:16:01.400
There's very few impact craters.
The surface is young.

367
00:16:01.400 --> 00:16:04.000
Some of its surface reminds us
of the kind of floors

368
00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:05.320
we'd see at
a basketball court --

369
00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:07.440
a parquet, a tessera.

370
00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:09.120
And these mountains are amongst

371
00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:12.160
the most unknown
in the solar system.

372
00:16:12.160 --> 00:16:15.640
There's no other place
that has the textures they have.

373
00:16:15.640 --> 00:16:20.360
So we see Venus
as a magical mystery tour.

374
00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:22.680
Relative to what we know
about Mars and the moon,

375
00:16:22.680 --> 00:16:24.600
she's still so enigmatic.

376
00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:27.560
We know more about Mercury,
thanks to the MESSENGER mission

377
00:16:27.560 --> 00:16:30.120
and now BepiColombo
going there, than we do

378
00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:32.360
about
our nearest neighbor planet,

379
00:16:32.360 --> 00:16:35.200
which, today, is only 90 million
kilometers from Earth,

380
00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:36.800
about five light minutes away,

381
00:16:36.800 --> 00:16:39.120
so you can see her in the sky.

382
00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:42.600
We have evidence that Venus may
be doing really exotic things,

383
00:16:42.600 --> 00:16:45.080
such as having volcanoes
that erupt.

384
00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:48.800
I wouldn't be surprised if Venus
is actively erupting today,

385
00:16:48.800 --> 00:16:50.680
belching gases
into its atmosphere

386
00:16:50.680 --> 00:16:52.960
that we could detect.
We see evidence of that

387
00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:55.800
in some places
that you can see listed here.

388
00:16:55.800 --> 00:16:59.960
So, what if Venus
were active today volcanically?

389
00:16:59.960 --> 00:17:02.360
Like our seafloor;
like volcanoes

390
00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.360
that have recently erupted
in the Philippines, like Taal;

391
00:17:05.360 --> 00:17:07.920
like the great volcanoes
of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

392
00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:10.200
That would change the way
we see that world

393
00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:11.720
and what we can measure.

394
00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:14.960
And that would be a key clue
to another dynamic world

395
00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:16.320
like our own.

396
00:17:16.320 --> 00:17:18.240
The other thing about Venus --

397
00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:21.400
and this is my only kind of
strange spaghetti slide --

398
00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:23.880
is, when we think of Venus --
and our atmosphere,

399
00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:25.440
over on the left,
next to Venus',

400
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:27.760
where spacecraft have gone --

401
00:17:27.760 --> 00:17:29.560
most of the atmosphere on Venus

402
00:17:29.560 --> 00:17:32.600
is essentially
chemically unexplored.

403
00:17:32.600 --> 00:17:34.720
When we look at the chemistry
we think we see,

404
00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.960
most of it is guesswork from
the kind of chemistry lab work

405
00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:40.200
you would have done
in high school or college.

406
00:17:40.200 --> 00:17:42.720
And so these squiggles
that you see

407
00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:46.000
in the big plot in the middle,
they're our best guesstimates

408
00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:49.160
of what might the atmosphere
be telling us.

409
00:17:49.160 --> 00:17:52.000
We think it probably
doesn't work that way.

410
00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.200
We don't have the data, and it's
always up to having the data

411
00:17:56.200 --> 00:17:57.360
to ask the questions.

412
00:17:57.360 --> 00:18:00.040
Explorers explore
out of curiosity,

413
00:18:00.040 --> 00:18:02.520
collect the information
to be there,

414
00:18:02.520 --> 00:18:04.400
to see there, to know there.

415
00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:06.080
We need to do that for Venus.

416
00:18:06.080 --> 00:18:07.800
So, what might we learn?

417
00:18:07.800 --> 00:18:11.400
Well, let's look at our Earth
again for a second. What are we?

418
00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:15.840
We're an ocean world
with a dynamic atmosphere

419
00:18:15.840 --> 00:18:18.680
full of water vapor
and aerosols.

420
00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:21.160
Our planet's controlled
by the dynamics of water.

421
00:18:21.160 --> 00:18:22.760
It's why we need to study Earth,

422
00:18:22.760 --> 00:18:24.600
because it informs how we look
at these other worlds.

423
00:18:24.600 --> 00:18:26.000
And then there's Venus.

424
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:27.600
The ultraviolet view
you see at right

425
00:18:27.600 --> 00:18:29.520
from the Japanese mission
Akatsuki

426
00:18:29.520 --> 00:18:33.920
shows us this beautiful
world with mystery chemistry,

427
00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:36.000
with cloud decks
that superrotate,

428
00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:37.600
and a surface we don't see.

429
00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:39.600
How does Venus work?

430
00:18:39.600 --> 00:18:43.840
She's really rather brazen
and peculiar, if you ask me.

431
00:18:43.840 --> 00:18:46.560
So, when you think
of Venus and Earth,

432
00:18:46.560 --> 00:18:48.600
well, they're the only
two planets of their type

433
00:18:48.600 --> 00:18:50.240
in our solar system.

434
00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:51.640
And that's important.

435
00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:54.080
They have interiors
that may be hot.

436
00:18:54.080 --> 00:18:55.840
They may be convecting.

437
00:18:55.840 --> 00:18:58.960
They have thin crusts
that may be deforming,

438
00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:00.400
perhaps volcanoes,

439
00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:04.160
and very limited
impact records to look at.

440
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:05.920
They haven't been around
that long --

441
00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:08.520
their surfaces, that is.

442
00:19:08.520 --> 00:19:11.320
They're a tale of two worlds.

443
00:19:11.320 --> 00:19:14.000
So when we compare them
to Jupiter and Saturn,

444
00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:16.680
the big gas giants
Neptune and Uranus,

445
00:19:16.680 --> 00:19:19.440
or even to Mercury,
Pluto, and the smaller worlds,

446
00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:21.080
they're in a unique class.

447
00:19:21.080 --> 00:19:23.880
In some ways
to better know ourselves,

448
00:19:23.880 --> 00:19:27.840
we do need to think about Venus
and how she worked in time.

449
00:19:27.840 --> 00:19:29.640
So let's think about it.

450
00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:33.400
Let's play the tape backwards,
as Stephen Jay Gould once said.

451
00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:36.800
That early Venus in the region
of the solar system

452
00:19:36.800 --> 00:19:38.320
where Earth was,

453
00:19:38.320 --> 00:19:41.520
only about 30, 40 million
kilometers from Earth,

454
00:19:41.520 --> 00:19:43.080
probably looked a lot like this.

455
00:19:43.080 --> 00:19:44.640
Like we imagine our early Earth.

456
00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:48.400
A maelstrom of oceans forming,
being collected.

457
00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:51.200
Volcanism,
giant impacts big enough

458
00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:53.520
to make things bigger
than Texas.

459
00:19:53.520 --> 00:19:55.160
This was the early Earth.

460
00:19:55.160 --> 00:19:58.640
And then, after that period
of Late Heavy Bombardment,

461
00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:02.320
of oceanic formation,
the planet stabilized.

462
00:20:02.320 --> 00:20:06.040
Early Earth, early Venus,
and maybe the Earth and Venus

463
00:20:06.040 --> 00:20:08.760
like worlds beyond
light-years from our world

464
00:20:08.760 --> 00:20:10.520
that we're now starting
to get to know

465
00:20:10.520 --> 00:20:14.000
with missions like TESS,
like Kepler, like CHEOPS.

466
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:17.000
Maybe this kind of
early planetary world

467
00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:20.000
is something that we can get
to know by looking at Venus.

468
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:21.960
The records of this on Earth
are gone.

469
00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:25.680
That first 600 million years
of Earth has been eradicated.

470
00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:28.440
We look at it through
the glimmers of history.

471
00:20:28.440 --> 00:20:30.240
May be preserved
in the topsy-turvy Mars,

472
00:20:30.240 --> 00:20:32.240
and maybe Venus is the clue.

473
00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:33.400
The Venus of today?

474
00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:35.200
Well, we're not sure.

475
00:20:35.200 --> 00:20:39.920
Maybe it's a volcano scape
with active volcanic plains,

476
00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:42.200
with interactions
of its big massive atmosphere

477
00:20:42.200 --> 00:20:45.640
with the rocks making minerals
that are exotic.

478
00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:47.560
What would the Venusians think?

479
00:20:47.560 --> 00:20:49.840
Well, we don't know.
So we want to find out.

480
00:20:49.840 --> 00:20:52.560
That lower 30,000 feet of Venus,

481
00:20:52.560 --> 00:20:54.960
the troposphere of Venus,
is as unexplored

482
00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:58.720
as anywhere in the solar system,
less well-known than Pluto,

483
00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:01.600
thanks to the magical mission
of New Horizons

484
00:21:01.600 --> 00:21:03.640
that Alan Stern led.

485
00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:05.120
So, some of us want to get back.

486
00:21:05.120 --> 00:21:06.920
So what do we want to do?

487
00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:08.480
Well, the first thing
we want to do

488
00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:10.960
is compare Venus
to the worlds we know.

489
00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:13.240
And when you look
at the time history,

490
00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:16.560
you know, as scientists,
sometimes we're also historians.

491
00:21:16.560 --> 00:21:18.920
We look at things
in the history of epochs

492
00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:21.160
and eras
where life was on Earth,

493
00:21:21.160 --> 00:21:23.640
the dinosaurs,
the pre-dinosaurs.

494
00:21:23.640 --> 00:21:26.600
You can see the column there
in the middle with Earth.

495
00:21:26.600 --> 00:21:29.200
The moon. We have ages
defined by impacts.

496
00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:31.040
Likewise on Mars
and now Mercury.

497
00:21:31.040 --> 00:21:32.440
Even on Pluto.

498
00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:35.840
On Venus, we have one column
with one line.

499
00:21:35.840 --> 00:21:40.640
We can do better because
there's a story in there.

500
00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:42.520
And, you know,
someone once said,

501
00:21:42.520 --> 00:21:44.200
"Maybe there's a pony in there."

502
00:21:44.200 --> 00:21:46.600
So let's go find the pony
that is Venus,

503
00:21:46.600 --> 00:21:48.600
is what
I would say to all of you.

504
00:21:48.600 --> 00:21:50.400
And we can do that
in many ways.

505
00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:54.480
Now, let's look at the lenses we
would use to look for that pony.

506
00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:56.800
In science,
we organize questions

507
00:21:56.800 --> 00:21:58.720
and hypotheses through lenses.

508
00:21:58.720 --> 00:22:01.280
The lenses we use --
Was a planet

509
00:22:01.280 --> 00:22:03.240
ever environmentally good enough

510
00:22:03.240 --> 00:22:06.200
to be habitable by the kind
of life we understand,

511
00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:08.640
microbial or bigger?

512
00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:09.760
That's a question.

513
00:22:09.760 --> 00:22:11.520
What was the climate state like?

514
00:22:11.520 --> 00:22:13.600
You know, we worry
about our climate on Earth,

515
00:22:13.600 --> 00:22:14.920
our environmental history.

516
00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:17.400
The Mars climate story
is fascinating.

517
00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:19.760
What was the climate of another
atmosphere-bearing planet like?

518
00:22:19.760 --> 00:22:21.680
What was the crust like?

519
00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:23.720
Those landscapes,
those volcano scapes.

520
00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:24.960
How did that work?

521
00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:27.880
And how might this world,
this planet

522
00:22:27.880 --> 00:22:30.560
be like other worlds
that we're going to start seeing

523
00:22:30.560 --> 00:22:32.720
better and better
as we go through the '20s

524
00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:36.800
and '30s with telescopes like
James Webb, like WFIRST,

525
00:22:36.800 --> 00:22:39.880
like all the ones
that'll be launched?

526
00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:43.840
So, for Venus, we can look at
all these questions at once.

527
00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:45.760
The next missions to Venus
will do that,

528
00:22:45.760 --> 00:22:49.640
and they'll connect Venus to the
destiny space of our own planet.

529
00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:52.720
Not tomorrow
or a couple generations,

530
00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.400
but across the epochs of time.

531
00:22:55.400 --> 00:22:56.840
And so, these are
the questions we use.

532
00:22:56.840 --> 00:22:59.480
And one thing I'm reminded --
100 years ago.

533
00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:02.040
in the front page of The New
York Times, a scientist said,

534
00:23:02.040 --> 00:23:04.840
"Life on Venus.
We should go look."

535
00:23:04.840 --> 00:23:08.840
That was 100 years ago
in the era of,

536
00:23:08.840 --> 00:23:11.440
you know, the beginnings
of the Roaring Twenties,

537
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:13.400
coming out
of the First World War.

538
00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:14.800
That's what
we were thinking then,

539
00:23:14.800 --> 00:23:16.760
when Robert Goddard
first started thinking

540
00:23:16.760 --> 00:23:19.880
about his rockets here
in the United States.

541
00:23:19.880 --> 00:23:24.480
The Venus atmosphere
in the clouds today

542
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:27.240
has conditions
that are not unlike

543
00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:29.120
those near
the surface of the Earth,

544
00:23:29.120 --> 00:23:30.800
except for its chemistry.

545
00:23:30.800 --> 00:23:34.080
Its pressure is like that
at the surface of the Earth.

546
00:23:34.080 --> 00:23:36.240
Temperature -- 20 degrees C.

547
00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:37.760
There's chemistry there

548
00:23:37.760 --> 00:23:41.400
with droplets of sulfuric
acid and other species.

549
00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:43.760
What if that world
could have been habitable

550
00:23:43.760 --> 00:23:45.800
in that region or elsewhere?

551
00:23:45.800 --> 00:23:48.280
Now, we don't know this.
This is a pure theory.

552
00:23:48.280 --> 00:23:50.800
Some scientists have worked
on some great cases for that.

553
00:23:50.800 --> 00:23:52.800
We just don't know.
We don't know

554
00:23:52.800 --> 00:23:56.320
the chemical-boundary conditions
to even ask that question.

555
00:23:56.320 --> 00:23:59.000
But what if we could?
Would that be worth doing?

556
00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:02.800
Asking about the limits to life
as we understand it.

557
00:24:02.800 --> 00:24:06.520
And life on Earth works
in many phenomenal places

558
00:24:06.520 --> 00:24:07.560
where you least expect it.

559
00:24:07.560 --> 00:24:08.960
In the deep earth

560
00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:11.840
miles deep underground
in mines, life is found.

561
00:24:11.840 --> 00:24:14.440
In hot springs and vents
and fumaroles

562
00:24:14.440 --> 00:24:16.680
like at Yellowstone, in Iceland,

563
00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:19.920
in the Azores,
in Philippines today at Taal,

564
00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:21.840
life ekes out a living.

565
00:24:21.840 --> 00:24:25.360
It's in the sarcophagus
at Chernobyl.

566
00:24:25.360 --> 00:24:27.720
So if we now study life
in all of these extremes

567
00:24:27.720 --> 00:24:29.840
through the lenses
of these biologists

568
00:24:29.840 --> 00:24:34.480
that look at extremophile life,
microbial life, how tough it is,

569
00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:36.640
why not ask about
whether this process

570
00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:38.040
could have worked on Venus?

571
00:24:38.040 --> 00:24:41.000
So, when we rack and stack
Venus over time,

572
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:43.680
over the long history of time,
what do we see?

573
00:24:43.680 --> 00:24:47.240
Well, if you just took
the amount of volume

574
00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:50.640
on a planet in its atmosphere,
its oceans, its crust,

575
00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:52.600
where you could stick
the kind of life,

576
00:24:52.600 --> 00:24:55.240
the microbial life,
that dominates our world --

577
00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:58.000
we're all too aware
of that today in this time --

578
00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:59.520
what would you see?

579
00:24:59.520 --> 00:25:03.560
Well, this simple graphic
shows with the green balls

580
00:25:03.560 --> 00:25:06.480
the amount of volume of places

581
00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:09.240
where microbial life
could have been.

582
00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:13.400
Venus has a large real estate
today in the atmosphere,

583
00:25:13.400 --> 00:25:15.400
in the past perhaps in oceans,

584
00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:20.200
that Venus may have been
a microbial bonanza.

585
00:25:20.200 --> 00:25:22.400
But we don't know.
We don't have the records,

586
00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:23.760
the measurements to understand.

587
00:25:23.760 --> 00:25:25.480
On Mars, we think maybe.

588
00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:27.280
It's worth looking and bringing
back samples,

589
00:25:27.280 --> 00:25:28.680
to ask that question.

590
00:25:28.680 --> 00:25:30.160
Were those biosignatures
preserved?

591
00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:32.160
On Earth, it's everywhere.

592
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:34.320
On Titan, we're gonna go look
with Dragonfly.

593
00:25:34.320 --> 00:25:36.360
Europa,
the ocean under the crust,

594
00:25:36.360 --> 00:25:38.400
we've got to go look,
with missions like Clipper.

595
00:25:38.400 --> 00:25:42.280
So, what about Venus? If this
is even vaguely the case,

596
00:25:42.280 --> 00:25:45.320
this is calling us
to the planet Venus.

597
00:25:45.320 --> 00:25:47.000
And then there's
the question of water.

598
00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:48.360
In the atmosphere of water,

599
00:25:48.360 --> 00:25:50.360
if you took every
little bit of water vapor,

600
00:25:50.360 --> 00:25:51.800
you would squeeze out
the same amount

601
00:25:51.800 --> 00:25:54.680
that we have as in
the atmosphere of Earth.

602
00:25:54.680 --> 00:25:56.560
But the problem is,
on the crust,

603
00:25:56.560 --> 00:25:58.280
in the crust, there is none.

604
00:25:58.280 --> 00:26:01.760
On Earth, there's 100,000 times
or more water.

605
00:26:01.760 --> 00:26:04.720
So where is the water?
We need to know.

606
00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:07.200
We need missions
sent by smart women

607
00:26:07.200 --> 00:26:09.960
and men with great
engineering and technology

608
00:26:09.960 --> 00:26:12.720
to go there and ferret
out this question --

609
00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:14.200
Where's the water?

610
00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:16.600
Where is the missing water
in the Venus system?

611
00:26:16.600 --> 00:26:17.920
How could we tell?

612
00:26:17.920 --> 00:26:20.160
So, there's a lot of ways
of telling.

613
00:26:20.160 --> 00:26:22.440
And, actually, as we speak
today, scientists,

614
00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:25.320
including those in New York,
Michael Way

615
00:26:25.320 --> 00:26:27.960
and Tony Del Genio,
are publishing papers

616
00:26:27.960 --> 00:26:31.080
about what might have been
this special Venus.

617
00:26:31.080 --> 00:26:33.800
Venus may have been
an ocean world

618
00:26:33.800 --> 00:26:37.720
for longer than any other planet
except Earth that we know about.

619
00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:40.600
It may have been.
We don't know for sure.

620
00:26:40.600 --> 00:26:42.520
Obviously, that's why
we need missions.

621
00:26:42.520 --> 00:26:45.000
But if it were, based
on what we can do today

622
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:47.320
with computer models
and glimmers,

623
00:26:47.320 --> 00:26:49.000
wouldn't that be cool?

624
00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:51.600
A world that went through 3
billion years of oceanic history

625
00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:53.680
to turn into
the hothouse of today.

626
00:26:53.680 --> 00:26:57.400
So, what we need -- measurements
to see this world

627
00:26:57.400 --> 00:26:59.200
in 21st-century light

628
00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:02.520
so the girls and boys,
the women and men of the '30s

629
00:27:02.520 --> 00:27:04.760
and '40s will have a place
to figure out.

630
00:27:04.760 --> 00:27:07.720
So one of my jobs
is to invent that future.

631
00:27:07.720 --> 00:27:11.360
And, today, two missions
are candidates

632
00:27:11.360 --> 00:27:14.600
in a competed program
that NASA runs called Discovery.

633
00:27:14.600 --> 00:27:17.800
One of them, I'm lucky enough
to be part of with my team,

634
00:27:17.800 --> 00:27:21.320
led by women and men smarter
than I'll ever be,

635
00:27:21.320 --> 00:27:23.400
which we named
after Leonardo da Vinci.

636
00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:25.520
And this is one of
two candidate missions

637
00:27:25.520 --> 00:27:27.320
that could fly to Venus
in the '20s.

638
00:27:27.320 --> 00:27:30.200
And our mission, DAVINCI+,
is a mission

639
00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:32.000
to explore
those chemical reservoirs

640
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:34.400
by going to the atmosphere
of the planet,

641
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:36.160
by measuring its scales

642
00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:37.960
as good as those
as a rover on Mars

643
00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:39.600
can measure in that atmosphere.

644
00:27:39.600 --> 00:27:43.720
Our mission is a flying
chemistry laboratory rover

645
00:27:43.720 --> 00:27:46.000
that also includes
a part of a mission

646
00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.520
to orbit the planet
and study its clouds

647
00:27:48.520 --> 00:27:51.200
and surface from above,
putting all that together

648
00:27:51.200 --> 00:27:53.360
in an observing system to see,

649
00:27:53.360 --> 00:27:55.600
how did the oceans of Venus
work,

650
00:27:55.600 --> 00:27:57.320
or were there any?

651
00:27:57.320 --> 00:27:59.320
What was that atmosphere
history like?

652
00:27:59.320 --> 00:28:00.840
Why is it in this climate state?

653
00:28:00.840 --> 00:28:02.800
What is the history
of that atmosphere?

654
00:28:02.800 --> 00:28:05.000
How would we know a Venus
if we saw one around

655
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:08.440
another star
beyond our solar system?

656
00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:11.200
This mission and others
being studied in Europe,

657
00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:12.920
in other places
in the United States,

658
00:28:12.920 --> 00:28:17.200
in Russia are what we're going
to do in the next 20 years.

659
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:20.520
We don't know which will go.
Maybe them all, maybe none.

660
00:28:20.520 --> 00:28:23.360
But if they go, they will change
how we see Venus.

661
00:28:23.360 --> 00:28:25.720
So, what would the Venus look
like if you were standing on it?

662
00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:28.880
So, last summer,
I visited a great volcano

663
00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:31.520
that I happen to know
and love in the islands

664
00:28:31.520 --> 00:28:33.800
known as the Azores,
part of Portugal.

665
00:28:33.800 --> 00:28:37.040
And this is a view which
I've colored the color of Venus

666
00:28:37.040 --> 00:28:38.400
to show you
the kind of landscapes

667
00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:40.800
that some of us imagine
on Venus today.

668
00:28:40.800 --> 00:28:43.800
Rockscapes of lava
and ash and dust

669
00:28:43.800 --> 00:28:45.680
blowing around at high pressure.

670
00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:47.800
This is a view of a place.

671
00:28:47.800 --> 00:28:49.960
And this is maybe
what we'd see at Venus.

672
00:28:49.960 --> 00:28:52.160
Our DAVINCI mission could
take photographs like this

673
00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:53.880
as we descend
through the clouds.

674
00:28:53.880 --> 00:28:56.160
Other missions would
look at it differently.

675
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:59.040
But this may be
what the Venus would look like

676
00:28:59.040 --> 00:29:01.440
that we could experience
in the next decade.

677
00:29:01.440 --> 00:29:06.120
So, the big why for Venus --
She's the missing link.

678
00:29:06.120 --> 00:29:09.280
We need to measure
her state variables.

679
00:29:09.280 --> 00:29:10.680
We need to take stock of her.

680
00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:13.200
There's no meteorites
from Venus on Earth.

681
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:15.600
We need to get into
the atmosphere again,

682
00:29:15.600 --> 00:29:17.880
where we haven't been
for almost 50 years.

683
00:29:17.880 --> 00:29:19.440
That's the laboratory.

684
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:21.960
That's the experiment
that Mother Nature gave us.

685
00:29:21.960 --> 00:29:24.480
We have the tools, folks.
We're ready.

686
00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:26.080
The women and men of today
have built those tools.

687
00:29:26.080 --> 00:29:28.800
They're working on Mars.
They're going to go to Titan.

688
00:29:28.800 --> 00:29:31.200
We've flown them to the moon.

689
00:29:31.200 --> 00:29:33.000
We're ready
to take them to Venus.

690
00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:36.000
We're ready to ask
those questions as we speak.

691
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:38.160
So our kids
will see the answers.

692
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:39.920
We're ready to take Venus,

693
00:29:39.920 --> 00:29:44.000
where we define a whole zone
relative to parent stars,

694
00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:46.280
and make it pop and come alive.

695
00:29:46.280 --> 00:29:47.960
Today, astrophysicists,

696
00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:50.960
looking at what they can tell
about planets

697
00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:53.920
around nearby stars,
have defined a Venus zone.

698
00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:55.720
Over on the left,
you see the parent stars --

699
00:29:55.720 --> 00:29:58.040
our sun right there,
brown dwarf.

700
00:29:58.040 --> 00:30:02.760
6.000 degrees Kelvin is what
our parent star does.

701
00:30:02.760 --> 00:30:05.600
We live with that star, and
you see Venus, Earth, and Mars

702
00:30:05.600 --> 00:30:08.480
if you draw a line across
from the left to the right.

703
00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:10.240
Venus is in the Venus zone,

704
00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:13.800
a zone that could have
once been habitable with oceans,

705
00:30:13.800 --> 00:30:17.200
all the right stuff that Earth
has, that Mars may have had,

706
00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:18.760
but doesn't anymore.

707
00:30:18.760 --> 00:30:21.720
We're discovering that
Venus zone may ebb and flow.

708
00:30:21.720 --> 00:30:24.600
But Venuses may be
the former Earths.

709
00:30:24.600 --> 00:30:27.600
We may be able to see
more Venuses than Earths

710
00:30:27.600 --> 00:30:29.720
by looking at the upper
atmospheres of planets

711
00:30:29.720 --> 00:30:33.400
around nearby suns
with the James Webb Telescope

712
00:30:33.400 --> 00:30:35.320
and the telescopes
that come beyond.

713
00:30:35.320 --> 00:30:38.560
We're celebrating 30 years
of the Hubble Space Telescope.

714
00:30:38.560 --> 00:30:41.000
In a year or so,
we'll launch the James Webb.

715
00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:43.200
And then, coming
in the late '20s and '30s,

716
00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:45.800
more telescopes
will see farther

717
00:30:45.800 --> 00:30:48.880
into this magical zone
of exoworlds.

718
00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.160
They may be everywhere,
and a large fraction of them

719
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:53.920
that we can see
may be Venus-like.

720
00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:58.560
So to understand them, we need
to understand our own Venus.

721
00:30:58.560 --> 00:31:00.960
So, from the top down,
from the top of the atmosphere,

722
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:02.600
from the surface,

723
00:31:02.600 --> 00:31:06.400
we will know that world
so we can see what the Venuses

724
00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:09.000
out there beyond
our solar system are telling us.

725
00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:11.400
And those exoplanets
that look like Venus

726
00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:14.360
may show us different
states of the Venus

727
00:31:14.360 --> 00:31:18.240
that today is that hothouse,
that climate run amuck.

728
00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:20.560
So, coupling what our
telescopes,

729
00:31:20.560 --> 00:31:22.480
our astrophysics tells us,

730
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:24.600
what our ground-based
telescopes tell us,

731
00:31:24.600 --> 00:31:27.560
to the Venus we can go explore
that's just next door,

732
00:31:27.560 --> 00:31:30.200
five light minutes away,
is going to change

733
00:31:30.200 --> 00:31:33.680
how we see ourselves
in the solar system, I predict.

734
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:37.000
So, I would say to you, as we
think about Venus through time,

735
00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:39.600
over 4-plus billion years,

736
00:31:39.600 --> 00:31:42.240
can we afford
not to visit her soon?

737
00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:44.840
We learn by analogy
as we explore.

738
00:31:44.840 --> 00:31:46.600
We go to the deeps
of the oceans,

739
00:31:46.600 --> 00:31:48.400
to the mountains,
to the volcanoes.

740
00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:51.200
We do those things as people
and as explorers.

741
00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:54.760
Venus presents an exploration
opportunity for us

742
00:31:54.760 --> 00:31:57.400
to extend ourselves
as women and men

743
00:31:57.400 --> 00:31:59.880
as we thought about
500 years ago.

744
00:31:59.880 --> 00:32:02.240
500 years ago.
we orbited this Earth.

745
00:32:02.240 --> 00:32:05.160
Daring mission by Magellan
and Elcano.

746
00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:08.920
500 years ago. da Vinci left
his legacy -- vision,

747
00:32:08.920 --> 00:32:11.400
art, science, technology.

748
00:32:11.400 --> 00:32:13.000
We're still inspired by it.

749
00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:16.440
Venus is a masterpiece
as yet unfinished.

750
00:32:16.440 --> 00:32:19.880
The discoverers are ready
to build on what we know,

751
00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:21.520
to build on what we are
going to know

752
00:32:21.520 --> 00:32:24.920
from great new telescopes,
to put her into her place

753
00:32:24.920 --> 00:32:27.920
and inform how we work.

754
00:32:27.920 --> 00:32:32.160
Today, in this era of
exploration in space by NASA,

755
00:32:32.160 --> 00:32:35.600
by Europeans and Japanese
and Australians, Canadians,

756
00:32:35.600 --> 00:32:38.400
Russians, Chinese,
all the peoples of this planet,

757
00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:41.000
we explore to inspire, innovate,

758
00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:43.840
to interconnect ourselves
beyond our home planet.

759
00:32:43.840 --> 00:32:46.000
And as the Rolling Stones
once said,

760
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:47.440
maybe time waits for no one.

761
00:32:47.440 --> 00:32:49.200
I would say Venus waits
for no one.

762
00:32:49.200 --> 00:32:53.440
We have to let our wonderment
get us back there.

763
00:32:53.440 --> 00:32:55.040
As we look at the night sky

764
00:32:55.040 --> 00:32:57.520
and imagine women on the moon
in a few years,

765
00:32:57.520 --> 00:33:00.640
which I know is gonna happen,
and it's gonna be amazing

766
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:03.880
as we do that, there's little
Venus hiding behind the moon,

767
00:33:03.880 --> 00:33:07.840
calling us, beckoning us,
"Come and see me, too.

768
00:33:07.840 --> 00:33:09.800
I have a lesson
to tell you about."

769
00:33:09.800 --> 00:33:12.000
I promise you,
people listening to this,

770
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:14.080
that lesson
is going to be spectacular.

771
00:33:14.080 --> 00:33:16.000
It's going to be beyond
our wildest dreams.

772
00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:17.560
We just have to go.

773
00:33:17.560 --> 00:33:20.920
So, let me conclude by saying
thank you for listening.

774
00:33:20.920 --> 00:33:23.080
Thanks to all the explorers
that have given us the wisdom

775
00:33:23.080 --> 00:33:25.400
to consider
even doing this stuff.

776
00:33:25.400 --> 00:33:27.160
On to Venus.

777
00:33:27.160 --> 00:33:27.160