WEBVTT FILE

1
00:00:01.070 --> 00:00:04.000
[slate]

2
00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:08.000
[slate]

3
00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.000
[slate]

4
00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.000
A conjunction means two or more bodies in space passing closely

5
00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.000
together in the sky. So in this case Venus and Mars will appear

6
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:24.000
close together - only about a finger’s width apart in the sky.

7
00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:28.000
Of course in reality Venus and Mars aren’t actually close together in

8
00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:32.000
space. Even during this conjunction they will still be many millions

9
00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:36.000
of miles apart. But from our point of view here on Earth, they will appear

10
00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:40.000
to be close together. [slate]

11
00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.000
[slate]

12
00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:48.000
You can spot Venus and Mars if you look low in the western sky

13
00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:52.000
beginning about half an hour after sunset. They’ll be

14
00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:56.000
closest together on July 12th and as an added bonus, you’ll be able to

15
00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:00.000
see a slim crescent moon close to them too.

16
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.000
[slate]

17
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:08.000
[slate]

18
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:12.000
NASA recently selected two new missions to Venus. These missions are called Veritas

19
00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:16.000
and Davinci which is named after Renaissance artist Leonardo Davinci.

20
00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:20.000
Now Veritas is going to orbit Venus to map the surface and measure

21
00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.000
the surface and measure it’s properties in great detail. I’m a member of the Davinci team

22
00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:28.000
and an exciting thing about our mission is we’re going to drop a probe into Venus

23
00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:32.000
Venus’s atmosphere. That probe will take about an hour to

24
00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:36.000
fall down to the surface. And while it falls, it will take thousands of

25
00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:40.000
measurements of the atmosphere and snap high-resolution photographs of the

26
00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:44.000
surface. All of this is going to help us understand how Venus formed and

27
00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:48.000
evolved through time and whatever we discover about this mysterious

28
00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:52.000
and intriguing place, well, we’re bound to be in for some surprises.

29
00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.000
[slate]

30
00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:00.000
[slate]

31
00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:04.000
Even though Venus is Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor there is still so much

32
00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:08.000
we still don’t understand about it. The environment

33
00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.000
of Venus is really, really extreme. This is a planet

34
00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:16.000
whose surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead. And whose clouds are

35
00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:20.000
made out of sulfuric acid. In fact, in the lowest part

36
00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:24.000
of the atmosphere, the air is heated and pressurized to the point

37
00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:28.000
that it acts more like a hot fluid than a gas. So

38
00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:32.000
it’s really not a nice place that you’d want to visit. But some

39
00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:36.000
scientists think that Venus may have been more like Earth in the past.

40
00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:40.000
There’s clues in the atmosphere and on the surface that’s hinting that Venus

41
00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:44.000
may once have been more hospitable. So we scientists really

42
00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:48.000
want to understand if that’s true, and if so what happened

43
00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:52.000
to change the environment on Venus so drastically.

44
00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:56.000
[slate]

45
00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:00.000
[slate]

46
00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:06.000
If you want to learn more about Venus and the other worlds of our solar system, you can visit

47
00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:06.520
solarsystem.nasa.gov.