Winners announced for the machine vs stellar and instrument noise data challenge

Artificial intelligence (AI) experts from around the world have been competing for the opportunity to help astronomers to explore planets in our local galactic neighbourhood.

The European Space Agency’s Ariel telescope, which launches in 2029, will study the atmospheres of around 1000 planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets.

Observing faint signals to measure the make-up of exoplanet atmospheres is incredibly challenging and is made even more so by other signals the instrument may pick up. The effect of star activity, like sun spots, and even the noise of the spacecraft itself can obscure the information scientists receive from Ariel. 

The Ariel Machine Learning Data Challenge, sponsored by Spaceflux Ltd, was set to harness the expertise of the artificial intelligence community to help disentangle this unwanted noise from the light filtering through exoplanet atmospheres. Over 110 teams from around the world participated with 35 teams submitting viable solutions. The teams represented a mix of academia and AI companies.

The competition winners, ML Analytics, an artificial intelligence company in Portugal, and a team from TU Dortmund University in Germany were able to achieve highly accurate solutions for even the most difficult to observe planets.

Luís F. Simões from ML Analytics said: ‘To advance our knowledge of exoplanets, we will first need to advance our knowledge of Artificial Intelligence. The Ariel mission will need predictive models that can extract information with extremely high accuracy from noisy sensor data. Building such models is akin to engineering at very small scales: at some point quantum effects start to manifest themselves, and conventional wisdom no longer applies. The Ariel Machine Learning Data Challenge provided the ideal setting in which to design the modelling approaches that can lead to such error-free models. It is an honour for me and ML Analytics to be able to play a part in this process of discovery,that will tell us so much about the universe and our place in it.’

Mirko Bunse from TU Dortmund University said: ‘To disentangle the atmospheric properties of exoplanets from the massive amounts of noise is only possible through machine learning models that are trained by sophisticated simulations. Since the first edition of this challenge in 2019, we have seen significant improvements in the Ariel simulations, which also lead to better machine learning-based analyses of the telescope data. We expect further improvements to stem from expert input: are all training examples equally important? Should the machine learning model obey certain boundary conditions? We are excited to take part in these developments and to see the solutions of the other 5 top-ranked teams.’

The winning teams will receive a cash prize of €500 and will be recognised at the Europlanet Science Congress 2021 in an award ceremony on Friday 24 September. The teams will present their research at the European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML PKDD) on Wednesday 15 September and will also present at the Ariel Conference in November. Their solutions will help the mission team correct for brightness variabilities from stars and sensitivity variations of the instrument enabling them to measure the radius of the planet correctly and discern the chemistry of their atmospheres.  

Dr Ingo Waldmann, Associate Professor in Astrophysics, University College London and Ariel Machine Learning Data Challenge lead said: ‘Artificial Intelligence will play an increasingly important role in exoplanet research. Many of the cutting-edge AI solutions can be applied to the very difficult data sets the exoplanet field has to offer. Data challenges such as this one not only provide tangible new solutions to long standing problems, they also help to bridge the gap between both the exoplanet and AI communities. I believe that a closer collaboration between exoplanet and AI research will not only benefit Ariel science but astronomy in general.’

The top three runners up, DeepBlueAI, an AI company based in Shanghai, a team from the Aalen University in Germany, an AI researcher at the University of Tubingen in Germany, will each receive €200 and will present a shorter talk at the ECML workshop.

This was the second Ariel Machine Learning Data challenge. With each competition the Ariel science team is able to work towards a programme which will enable them to get the best quality data from Ariel. By looking at their atmospheres we can understand how these planets formed, what they’re like and ultimately, put the eight planets in our own solar system into context. 

Images

Ariel will be placed in orbit around the Lagrange Point 2 (L2), a gravitational balance point 1.5 million kilometres beyond the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Image Credit: ESA/STFC RAL Space/UCL/Europlanet-Science Office 

https://arielspacemission.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/ariel_lagrange_points_high_res1.jpg

Artist’s impression of Ariel. Image Credit: ESA/STFC RAL Space/UCL/UK Space Agency/ ATG Medialab 

https://arielspacemission.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/ariel-telescope.jpg

A hot planet transits in front of its parent star in this artist impression of an exoplanet system. ESA/ATG medialab, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2018/03/Hot_exoplanet

Videos: 

Note: Please get in touch with press contact for mp4 files. 

Ariel animations: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nlYuIpjicaxp36LxZwkXOH72Otf-rgY  

Welcome to Ariel: https://youtu.be/28afJ_5TTGc

Contacts: 

Madeleine Russell
Ariel Consortium Communications Lead and RAL Space Communications Manager
Mob: +44 (0) 7594083386
Email: madeleine.russell@stfc.ac.uk

Notes to editors: 

Ariel (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey) 

Ariel, a mission to answer fundamental questions about how planetary systems form and evolve, is a European Space Agency (ESA) medium-class science mission due for launch in 2029. During a 4-year mission, Ariel will observe 1000 planets orbiting distant stars in visible and infrared wavelengths to study how they formed and how they evolve. It is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemistry and thermal structures exoplanet atmospheres, enabling planetary science far beyond the boundaries of the Solar System. 

The Ariel mission has been developed by a consortium of more than 50 institutes from 16 ESA member state countries, including the UK, France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Estonia – plus USA contribution from NASA. 

Twitter: @ArielTelescope | YouTube: Ariel Space Mission | arielmission.space

Ariel Machine Learning Data Challenge

https://www.ariel-datachallenge.space/

Ariel consortium 

The Ariel mission payload is developed by a consortium of more than 50 institutes from 17 ESA countries – which include the UK, France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Estonia – plus a NASA contribution. 

UCL – London’s Global University 

UCL is a diverse community with the freedom to challenge and think differently. 

Our community of more than 41,500 students from 150 countries and over 12,500 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems. 

We are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.

We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research – championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors. 

For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge. 

We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL. 

www.ucl.ac.uk| Follow @uclnews on Twitter | Watch our YouTube channel | Listen to UCL podcasts on SoundCloud | Find out what’s on at UCL Minds | #MadeAtUCL

EPSC2021

The Ariel Machine Learning Data Challenge will be presented on Friday 24 September 2021 during the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2021 during the prize lectures session from 14:20-14:50 CEST. For details see: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/session/41825

EPSC2021 is taking place as a virtual meeting from 13-24 September 2021. The EPSC2021 programme covers the full spectrum of planetary science and technology across 43 sessions. More than 840 oral and poster presentations have been submitted by planetary scientists from Europe, the US and around the world. The EPSC2021 virtual meeting has a hybrid format of asynchronous presentations and discussion alongside a programme of live events, which runs from Thursday 16 – Friday 24 September.

The Europlanet Science Congress (https://www.epsc2021.eu/) is the annual meeting place of the Europlanet Society and is the largest planetary science meeting in Europe.

Follow on Twitter via @europlanetmedia and using the hashtag #EPSC2021.

EPSC2021 is sponsored by Space: Science & Technology, a Science Partner Journal.

The European Space Agency formally adopts Ariel, the exoplanet explorer

The European Space Agency (ESA) has formally adopted Ariel, the first mission dedicated to study the nature, formation and evolution of exoplanets.

• Ariel has passed major feasibility reviews and has been formally adopted into the program of future missions for implementation
• It will survey about 1000 planets outside our solar system during its lifetime
• Ariel will unveil the nature, formation and evolution of a large and assorted sample of planets around different types of stars in our galaxy

More than 50 institutes from 17 countries have been working over the past 5 years to develop the science goals and design the instrumentation which will enable Ariel to survey a diverse sample of around 1000 planets outside our own solar system. 

The mission has passed a rigorous set of reviews which it has been undergoing throughout 2020 to prove the technical feasibility and science case and has now received approval from ESA’s member states, confirming that the team can work towards a launch in 2029. 

Professor Giovanna Tinetti, Principal Investigator for Ariel from University College London said, “We are the first generation capable of studying planets around other stars. Ariel will seize this unique opportunity and reveal the nature and history of hundreds of diverse worlds in our galaxy. We can now embark on the next stage of our work to make this mission a reality.”

Ariel will be the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and atmospheric thermal properties of hundreds of transiting exoplanets. Ariel will give us a picture of a diverse range of exoplanets: from extremely hot to temperate, from gaseous to rocky planets orbiting close to their parent stars. 

By looking specifically at hot planets, scientists are expecting to build an understanding of the formation of planets and their evolution. At hotter temperature, which in some cases it can be more than 2000’C, a greater number of exotic molecules will be visible to Ariel. The instruments will then be able to determine what the atmospheres are made up of and provide scientists a unique insight into the planet’s internal composition and the formation history of the planetary system

The Ariel team is taking a very open approach providing rapid access to data and even encouraging enthusiasts to help select targets and characterise stars. Much of the data will be available to both the science community and general public immediately. 

“Ariel will enable planetary science far beyond the boundaries of our own Solar System,” says Günther Hasinger, ESA’s Director of Science. “The adoption of Ariel cements ESA’s commitment to exoplanet research and will ensure European astronomers are at the forefront of this revolutionary field for the next decade and well beyond.”

Ariel will have a meter-class telescope primary mirror to collect visible and infrared light from distant star systems. An infrared spectrometer will spread the light into a ‘rainbow’ and extract the chemical fingerprints of gases in the planets’ atmospheres, which become embedded in starlight when a planet passes in front or behind the star. A photometer, a spectrometer and guidance system will capture information on the presence on clouds in the atmospheres of the exoplanets and will allow the spacecraft to point to the target star with high stability and precision.

The Ariel Consortium Project Manager, Paul Eccleston, of STFC RAL Space, said “This represents the culmination of lots of preparatory work by our teams across the world over the last 5 years in order to demonstrate the feasibility and readiness of the payload. We now go full speed ahead to fully develop the design and start building prototypes of the instrumentation on the spacecraft.”

The Ariel mission consortium teams from across Europe will now move on to build and prototype their designs for the payload of Ariel and plan for receiving and processing the data. The industrial contractor for the spacecraft bus, which will support the payload coming from the nationally funded consortium teams, will be selected in the summer 2021. 

Images: 

Link to high-resolution file: https://arielspacemission.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/ariel_lagrange_points_high_res1.jpg

Link to high-resolution file: https://arielspacemission.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/ariel-telescope.jpg

Link to high-resolution file: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2018/03/Hot_exoplanet

Videos:
Note: Please get in touch with press contact for mp4 files.
Ariel animations: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMLTUdXBPNS_pDJcGNZoLYw
Welcome to Ariel: https://youtu.be/28afJ_5TTGc

Contacts:
Madeleine Russell
Ariel Consortium Communications Lead and RAL Space Communications Manager
Mob: +44 (0) 7594083386
Email: madeleine.russell@stfc.ac.uk

Notes to editors:
Ariel (Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey) Facts and Figures

• Elliptical primary mirror: 1.1 x 0.7 metres
• Instrumentation: 3 photometric channels and 3 spectrometers covering continuously from 0.5 to 7.8 microns in wavelength
• Mission lifetime: at least 4 years in orbit
• Launch date: 2029
• Payload mass: ~500 kg
• Launch mass: ~1500kg
• Destination: Sun – Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2)
• ESA Mission Cost: ~550 million Euros, plus nationally funded contribution of the payload
• Launch vehicle: Ariane 6-2 from French Guiana shared with Comet Interceptor

http://ariel-spacemission.eu
Twitter: @ArielTelescope

Ariel consortium
The Ariel mission payload is developed by a consortium of more than 50 institutes from 17 ESA countries – which include the UK, France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Estonia – plus a NASA contribution.

UCL MAPS
www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematical-physical-sciences

STFC RAL Space
RAL Space is an integral part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) and is the space hub for UK Research and Innovation. RAL Space carries out world-class space research and technology development with involvement in over 210 instruments on board space missions.
www.ralspace.stfc.ac.uk
Twitter: @RAL_Space_STFC

Europlanet launches 10M Euro research infrastructure to support planetary science

Europlanet has launched a 10 million Euro project, the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI), to provide open access to the world’s largest collection of planetary simulation and analysis facilities, as well as a global network of small telescopes, data services, and community support activities. Europlanet 2024 RI aims to widen participation in planetary science and provides the infrastructure to address key scientific and technological challenges facing the planetary research community.

The project is funded through the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme and will run for four years from February 2020 until January 2024. The Europlanet 2024 RI consortium is led by the University of Kent, UK, and has 53 beneficiary institutions from 21 countries in Europe and around the world, with a further 44 affiliated partners.

“This is a step-change in ambition for Europlanet, involving 60% more partners and expanding our collaborations in Africa and, for the first time, in Asia,” said Prof Nigel Mason, the Coordinator of Europlanet 2024 RI and President of the Europlanet Society. “The project will draw on the resources of the Europlanet Society, launched in 2018, to disseminate activities and outcomes and develop a more diverse community of users.”

Europlanet 2024 RI will provide the planetary community with free ‘transnational access’ to 24 laboratories in Europe and five field sites worldwide to carry out research projects.

Prof Gareth Davies, of VU Amsterdam, who leads the transnational access programme, said: “Europlanet 2024 RI has created a unique collection of field sites and laboratories to simulate and analyse planetary environments. Planetary missions over the next decade will study very diverse targets in our own Solar System and those around other stars. Europlanet 2024 RI has chosen a suite of facilities that can best help us understand the data sent back by spacecraft and plan for future missions.”

The five field sites offered by Europlanet 2024 RI stretch from Africa to the Arctic Circle and provide terrestrial analogues for planetary environments past and present, including the icy environments of Europa and Ganymede, geothermally active regions of Venus, Io and ancient Mars, and lava caves on the Moon or Mars that may house human habitats in the future.

Eleven laboratories provide simulation facilities for atmospheric and surface environments that do not exist on Earth, from the scorching surface conditions of Mercury and Venus, to low-pressure dust-storms on Mars, or the extreme cold of Uranus, Neptune and comets, as well as dust and particle accelerators to study impact and irradiation effects. A further 13 facilities offer capabilities to analyse the composition of planetary samples with high precision and using non-destructive techniques, and to detect and sequence microbial communities found living in hostile conditions on Earth.

Europlanet 2024 RI builds on the heritage of EU-funded projects dating back over 15 years. To harness collaborations developed between professional and amateur astronomers, Europlanet 2024 RI is launching a coordinated network of small telescope facilities around the world that can provide rapid response observations to support planetary missions.

The project will expand virtual access services to include a geological mapping portal, GMAP, and to exploit machine learning for automatic recognition and analysis of planetary data sets.

Over 30 databases will be added to the VESPA virtual observatory portal, which currently provides access to 54 planetary science data services derived from space missions, observation campaigns, modelling projects and laboratory experiments. Europlanet 2024 RI will also extend its planetary space weather service, SPIDER, to provide predictions and alerts for spacecraft operations in response to solar activity and support science data analysis.

To bring in new users, support the community and raise awareness of planetary science, Europlanet 2024 RI will organise training and workshops to engage industry, policy makers, early career professionals and researchers from countries that are under-represented in planetary science, both in Europe and around the world. The project will also trial a reciprocal access agreement with Chinese and Korean research facilities.

Prof Barbara Cavalazzi of the University of Bologna, who leads global collaboration activities for Europlanet 2024 RI, said: “We aim to help create a more interconnected global planetary science community and support sustainable development around new facilities, recognising the unique contribution of each community involved and building collaborative research and outreach programmes.”

Video:

Video of the Iceland transnational access facility offered by Matis. Credit: Europlanet/madebygravity.co

Images:

Europlanet 2024 RI provides access to the planetary field analogue site at the Danakil Depression in north-eastern Ethiopia, including the Dallol volcano and its adjacent areas. The site provides a natural and complex analogue for extreme planetary environments linked to transient lakes and hydrothermal vents, the latter representing analogues of Venus, Io, Ganymede and other satellites where water is pumped to the surface in tectonically active settings. Sulphate deposits in the region also appear to have direct analogues on Mars. Credit: B. Cavalazzi

https://www.europlanet-society.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/fig-6.jpg

Europlanet 2024 RI provides access to 24 laboratory simulation and analysis facilities, including the Isotoptech Carbon-14 dating accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS14C) facility. Credit: Isotoptech Zrt.

https://www.europlanet-society.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/amsc14_3.jpg

Collaborations between professional and amateur astronomers developed by Europlanet over recent years have led to the establishment of a network of small telescopes under Europlanet 2024 RI to support space missions with rapid-response ground-based observations. Credit: Ricardo Hueso.

https://www.europlanet-society.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_5483b2.jpg

Europlanet 2024 RI will provide training and workshops to widen participation in planetary science from under-represented countries and support early career researchers. Credit: Andrius Zigmantas.

https://www.europlanet-society.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC1065.jpg

Further information

First Call for Transnational Access: [Link]

The Beneficiaries of Europlanet 2024 RI

Austria: Österreichische Akademie de Wissenschaften, KNOW Center Graz, Medizinische Universität Graz. Belgium:Institut d’Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique. Botswana: Botswana International University of Science and Technology. China: China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Peking University, Shandong University, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Czech Republic: Ústav fyziky atmosféry AV ČR. Denmark: Aarhus Universitet. Ethiopia: University of Mekelle. Finland: Ilmatieteen Laitos. France: ACRI-ST, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique., European Science Foundation, Observatoire de Paris, Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales, Spacefrog Design. Germany: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt, Jacobs University, University of Passau, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Greece: European Institute of Law, Science and Technology. Hungary: Atomki, Isotoptech, Wigner RCP. Iceland: Matís Ohf. Italy: Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Universita Degli Studi Gabriele D’annunzio di Chieti-Pescara, Università di Bologna, University of Padova. Korea: National Facilities and Equipment Center in Korean Institute. Lithuania: Vilniaus Universitetas. Netherlands: Stichting VU. Poland: Uniwersytet Im. Adama Mickiewicza W Poznaniu, Centrum Badan Kosmicznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Russian Federation: M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. Slovakia: Comenius University of Bratislava. Spain: Centro de Astrobiologia-CAB (CSIC-INTA), Universidad Del Pais Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Sweden: Institutet För Rymdfysik, Luleå University of Technology. Switzerland: ETH Zurich. UK: University of Kent, Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, Blue Skies Space Ltd, The Dill Faulkes Educational Trust Ltd, Natural History Museum, Open University, University College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Stirling. 

Contacts:

Prof Nigel Mason
President of the Europlanet Society
Coordinator of Europlanet 2024 RI
University of Kent
Canterbury, UK
Email: N.J.Mason@kent.ac.uk

Professor Gareth R. Davies
Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Email: g.r.davies@vu.nl

Prof Barbara Cavalazzi
Università di Bologna
Bologna, Italy
E-mail: barbara.cavalazzi@unibo.it

Media Contacts

Anita Heward
Communications Officer
Europlanet 2020 RI
Tel: +44 7756034243

About Europlanet

Since 2005, Europlanet has provided Europe’s planetary science community with a platform to exchange ideas and personnel, share research tools, data and facilities, define key science goals for the future, and engage stakeholders, policy makers and European citizens with planetary science.

The Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149 to provide access to state-of-the-art research facilities and a mechanism to coordinate Europe’s planetary science community. The project builds on a €2 million Framework 6 Coordination Action (EuroPlaNet), a €6 million Framework 7 Research Infrastructure (Europlanet RI) and a €10 million Horizon 2020 Research Infrastructure (Europlanet 2020 RI) funded by the European Commission.

The Europlanet Society promotes the advancement of European planetary science and related fields for the benefit of the community and is open to individual and organisational members. The Society’s aims are:

• To expand and support a diverse and inclusive planetary community across Europe through the activities of its 10 Regional Hubs.
• To build the profile of the sector through outreach, education and policy activities
• To underpin the key role Europe plays in planetary science through developing links at a national and international level.

Europlanet 2024 RI project website: www.europlanet-2024-ri.eu

Europlanet Society website: www.europlanet-society.org   

Follow on Twitter via @europlanetmedia

Could Venus have been habitable?

Venus may have been a temperate planet hosting liquid water for 2-3 billion years, until a dramatic transformation starting over 700 million years ago resurfaced around 80% of the planet. A study presented today at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 by Michael Way of The Goddard Institute for Space Science gives a new view of Venus’s climatic history and may have implications for the habitability of exoplanets in similar orbits.

Forty years ago, NASA’s Pioneer Venus mission found tantalising hints that Earth’s ‘twisted sister’ planet may once have had a shallow ocean’s worth of water. To see if Venus might ever have had a stable climate capable of supporting liquid water, Dr Way and his colleague, Anthony Del Genio, have created a series of five simulations assuming different levels of water coverage.

In all five scenarios, they found that Venus was able to maintain stable temperatures between a maximum of about 50 degrees Celsius and a minimum of about 20 degrees Celsius for around three billion years. A temperate climate might even have been maintained on Venus today had there not been a series of events that caused a release, or ‘outgassing’, of carbon dioxide stored in the rocks of the planet approximately 700-750 million years ago.

“Our hypothesis is that Venus may have had a stable climate for billions of years. It is possible that the near-global resurfacing event is responsible for its transformation from an Earth-like climate to the hellish hot-house we see today,” said Way.

Three of the five scenarios studied by Way and Del Genio assumed the topography of Venus as we see it today and considered a deep ocean averaging 310 metres, a shallow layer of water averaging 10 metres and a small amount of water locked in the soil. For comparison, they also included a scenario with Earth’s topography and a 310-metre ocean and, finally, a world completely covered by an ocean of 158 metres depth.

To simulate the environmental conditions at 4.2 billion years ago, 715 million years ago and today, the researchers adapted a 3D general circulation model to account for the increase in solar radiation as our Sun has warmed up over its lifetime, as well as for changing atmospheric compositions.

Although many researchers believe that Venus is beyond the inner boundary of our Solar System’s habitable zone and is too close to the Sun to support liquid water, the new study suggests that this might not be the case.

“Venus currently has almost twice the solar radiation that we have at Earth. However, in all the scenarios we have modelled, we have found that Venus could still support surface temperatures amenable for liquid water,” said Way.

At 4.2 billion years ago, soon after its formation, Venus would have completed a period of rapid cooling and its atmosphere would have been dominated by carbon-dioxide. If the planet evolved in an Earth-like way over the next 3 billion years, the carbon dioxide would have been drawn down by silicate rocks and locked into the surface. By the second epoch modelled at 715 million years ago, the atmosphere would likely have been dominated by nitrogen with trace amounts of carbon dioxide and methane – similar to the Earth’s today – and these conditions could have remained stable up until present times.

The cause of the outgassing that led to the dramatic transformation of Venus is a mystery, although probably linked to the planet’s volcanic activity. One possibility is that large amounts of magma bubbled up, releasing carbon dioxide from molten rocks into the atmosphere. The magma solidified before reaching the surface and this created a barrier that meant that the gas could not be reabsorbed. The presence of large amounts of carbon dioxide triggered a runaway greenhouse effect, which has resulted in the scorching 462 degree average temperatures found on Venus today.

“Something happened on Venus where a huge amount of gas was released into the atmosphere and couldn’t be re-absorbed by the rocks. On Earth we have some examples of large-scale outgassing, for instance the creation of the Siberian Traps 500 million years ago which is linked to a mass extinction, but nothing on this scale. It completely transformed Venus,” said Way.

There are still two major unknowns that need to be addressed before the question of whether Venus might have been habitable can be fully answered. The first relates to how quickly Venus cooled initially and whether it was able to condense liquid water on its surface in the first place. The second unknown is whether the global resurfacing event was a single event or simply the latest in a series of events going back billions of years in Venus’s history.

“We need more missions to study Venus and get a more detailed understanding of its history and evolution,” said Way. “However, our models show that there is a real possibility that Venus could have been habitable and radically different from the Venus we see today. This opens up all kinds of implications for exoplanets found in what is called the ‘Venus Zone’, which may in fact host liquid water and temperate climates.”

https://www.europlanet-society.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ancient-venus-new.jpg

Media contacts

Anita Heward
EPSC Press Officer
+44 7756 034243
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-society.org

Livia Giacomini
EPSC Press Officer
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-society.org

Adriana Postiglione
EPSC Press Officer
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-society.org

Shantanu Naidu
DPS Press Officer
dpspress@aas.org

Notes for Editors

EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019
The 2019 Joint Meeting (www.epsc-dps2019.eu) of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) of the Europlanet Society and the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) will take place at the Centre International de Conférences de Genève (CICG), Geneva, Switzerland, from Sunday 15 to Friday 20 September 2019. More than 1950 abstracts have been submitted and over 1500 planetary scientists from Europe, the US and around the world are expected to attend the meeting, making it one of the largest gatherings of planetary scientists held in Europe to date.

The EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 will be the third time that EPSC and the DPS Annual Meeting have been held together.
Follow: @europlanetmedia #EPSCDPS2019

Europlanet
The Europlanet Society, launched in September 2018, is an organization for individual and corporate members to promote the advancement of planetary science and related fields in Europe. The Society provides Europe’s planetary science community with a platform to exchange ideas and personnel, share research tools, data and facilities, define key science goals for the future, and engage stakeholders, policy makers and European citizens with planetary science. The Europlanet Society is the parent organisation of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC).
Europlanet Society website: www.europlanet-society.org
EPSC-DPSC 2019 Joint Meeting 2019 website: www.epsc-dps2019.eu

DPS
The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS), founded in 1968, is the largest special-interest Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Members of the DPS study the bodies of our own solar system, from planets and moons to comets and asteroids, and all other solar-system objects and processes. With the discovery that planets exist around other stars, the DPS has expanded its scope to include the study of extrasolar planetary systems as well.

The AAS, established in 1899, is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. The membership (approx. 7,500) also includes physicists, mathematicians, geologists, engineers, and others whose research interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects now comprising contemporary astronomy. The mission of the AAS is to enhance and share humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe, which it achieves through publishing, meeting organization, education and outreach, and training and professional development.

Drones probe terrestrial dust devils to better understand the atmosphere of Mars

Dust devils, small dusty whirlwinds, have been studied for decades. But, says Brian Jackson, an associate professor in the Department of Physics at Boise State University, the ability of dust devils to lift dust into the atmosphere remains murky. “When we compare theoretical predictions of how much dust a devil should lift to how much it does lift, the numbers just don’t add up,” says Jackson,

Now, Jackson and his team, including Dr Ralph Lorenz of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab and Michelle Szurgot, an undergraduate physics major at Boise State, have begun to study the phenomenon in a way it has never been studied before. They fly drones through active dust devils on the Alvord Desert of southeastern Oregon. The drones carry cameras and other lightweight instruments, including pressure and temperature loggers, that measure the structures of the dust devil while taking particle samples to determine how much material the dust devil is carrying.  Jackson will present results today at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Dust devils, while common in arid climates on Earth, are ubiquitous on Mars, where they may be responsible for much of the planet’s haze that helps heat its atmosphere. Dust devils have been observed from landers the ground and from orbiting spacecraft all over the surface of Mars. A better understanding of dust devils on Earth will help scientists understand their influence on Mars’ climate, says Jackson.

NASA currently has three active rovers on Mars, two of which are powered by solar panels. Martian dust has been a concern, falling on the panels and reducing the amount of energy generated, and the static charges that can build up in the dust devils may pose a hazard to electrical equipment deployed on Mars.

Previous studies of martian dust devils have relied on passive sampling of the profiles via meteorology packages on landed spacecraft. Past studies of terrestrial devils have employed more active sampling (instrumented vehicles or manned aircraft) but have been limited to near-surface or relatively high-altitude sampling.

Drones promise a new and powerful platform from which to sample dust devils at a variety of altitudes. Measurements made aloft are more directly relevant for evaluating the dust that is injected into the atmosphere.

In summer 2017, Jackson and his team were awarded a grant from the NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium to launch drones into dust devils. In 2018, they also received a three-year, $217,000 grant from NASA’s Solar System Workings Program.

Image and video

https://www.europlanet-society.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Dust_devil.jpg

Footage collected onboard the drone during flight:

Media Contacts
Anna Webb
Tel: +(208) 426-3275
annawebb@boisestate.edu

Anita Heward
EPSC Press Officer
+44 7756 034243
anita.heward@europlanet-eu.org
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-society.org

Livia Giacomini
EPSC Press Officer
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-society.org

Adriana Postiglione
EPSC Press Officer
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-society.org

Shantanu Naidu
DPS Press Officer
dpspress@aas.org

During the meeting, the EPSC-DPS Press Office can be contacted on +41 22 791 9617.

Further information

EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019

The 2019 Joint Meeting (www.epsc-dps2019.eu) of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) of the Europlanet Society and the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) will take place at the Centre International de Conférences de Genève (CICG), Geneva, Switzerland, from Sunday 15 to Friday 20 September 2019. More than 1950 abstracts have been submitted and over 1500 planetary scientists from Europe, the US and around the world are expected to attend the meeting, making it one of the largest gatherings of planetary scientists held in Europe to date.

The EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 will be the third time that EPSC and the DPS Annual Meeting have been held together.

Follow: @europlanetmedia #EPSCDPS2019

Europlanet 

The Europlanet Society, launched in September 2018, is an organization for individual and corporate members to promote the advancement of planetary science and related fields in Europe. The Society provides Europe’s planetary science community with a platform to exchange ideas and personnel, share research tools, data and facilities, define key science goals for the future, and engage stakeholders, policy makers and European citizens with planetary science. The Europlanet Society is the parent organisation of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC).

Europlanet Society website: www.europlanet-society.org

EPSC-DPSC 2019 Joint Meeting 2019 website: www.epsc-dps2019.eu

DPS

The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS), founded in 1968, is the largest special-interest Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Members of the DPS study the bodies of our own solar system, from planets and moons to comets and asteroids, and all other solar-system objects and processes. With the discovery that planets exist around other stars, the DPS has expanded its scope to include the study of extrasolar planetary systems as well.

The AAS, established in 1899, is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. The membership (approx. 7,500) also includes physicists, mathematicians, geologists, engineers, and others whose research interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects now comprising contemporary astronomy. The mission of the AAS is to enhance and share humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe, which it achieves through publishing, meeting organization, education and outreach, and training and professional development.

About Boise State University

A public metropolitan research university with more than 22,000 students, Boise State is proud to be powered by creativity and innovation. Located in Idaho’s capital city, the university has a growing research agenda and plays a crucial role in the region’s knowledge economy and famed quality of life. In the past 10 years, the university has quadrupled the number of doctoral degrees, doubled its masters degrees and now offers 13 online degree programs. Learn more at www.BoiseState.edu.