Looking for a possible life: "We Europeans should fly to Venus"

2019-11-06T17:04:48.640Z

When researchers search for life outside the earth, they look to Mars. But the German space company OHB now wants to take Venus into view - even if it is very uncomfortable there.

Testing is under way at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, also at Airbus in Toulouse and at the space company Thales Alenia in Cannes: space experts are currently working on two robotic cars that will be launched with rockets to Mars next year. "Mars 2020" is the name of Nasa's mission; Europeans want to send rover "Rosalind Franklin" to the Red Planet as part of their "ExoMars" project.

One of the fundamental questions of such missions: Did life once exist on Mars? Does it even exist? An indication of this is mysterious methane gas emissions, which can be detected in the atmosphere. They could come from microorganisms deep in the soil.

The knowledge of life outside the earth would be one of the most far-reaching discoveries in human history: the certainty that life on earth is not a special case, the certainty that we are not alone in space.

Apart from Earth, Mars is already the best studied planet in the solar system thanks to numerous orbiter and lander. The German Space Manager Marco Fuchs says: Despite all the enthusiasm for the Red Planet, another celestial body in our neighborhood has almost been forgotten: the Venus.

There could be life there, too. In an interview, the CEO of the space company OHB explains how it could possibly be.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Fox, what do you have against Mars?

Fuchs: Nothing at all, Mars is a great target for scientific probes. But with Venus there is perhaps more to be learned scientifically. It has not been researched enough. We Europeans should therefore build a lander and fly there.

SPIEGEL: It's not like there were not any missions to Venus. Above all, the Soviets have successfully landed there with probes several times. There were also orbiters from Americans, Europeans, Japanese.

Fuchs: There were still comparatively few. And just in the last few weeks and months, there have been some very interesting scientific publications about the planet. It became clear to me that the time for Venus is ripe again. We finally have to ask the big questions.

SPIEGEL: And that would be?

Fuchs: For example, it is about whether you can see on Venus, how the earth could develop in the future. Maybe she's already more advanced in her life cycle than our planet. The Venus was once also very friendly to life. She had stable temperatures of 20 to 50 degrees, there was liquid water. Then the planet has been heated by a massive greenhouse effect. Now the question arises whether there still life can exist there.

SPIEGEL: On the surface of Venus it is more than 450 degrees Celsius hot. The pressure is almost 90 times higher than on Earth. How should life exist?

Fuchs: Recently, an article was published in a magazine of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For this, researchers have reworked the images of the Soviet national probes from the seventies and eighties. They hypothesize that there could be life on the surface of Venus - despite temperature and pressure.