Venus as a Nearby Exoplanetary Laboratory

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes studying Venus as a nearby laboratory to understand uninhabitable environments, advocating for models and missions to better grasp planetary habitability limits and inform exoplanet research.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of comprehensive Venus studies, including atmospheric modeling and in-situ missions, to understand habitability boundaries and guide exoplanet exploration.

Findings

Venus provides insights into uninhabitable planetary environments.

Modeling and in-situ data are crucial for understanding habitability.

Venus-analog frequency analysis aids exoplanet habitability assessment.

Abstract

The key goals of the astrobiology community are to identify environments beyond Earth that may be habitable, and to search for signs of life in those environments. A fundamental aspect of understanding the limits of habitable environments and detectable signatures is the study of where such environments can occur. Thus, the need to study the creation, evolution, and frequency of environments hostile to habitability is an integral part of the astrobiology story. The study of these environments provides the opportunity to understand the bifurcation between habitable and uninhabitable conditions on planetary bodies. The archetype of such a planet is Earth's sibling planet, Venus, which provides a unique opportunity to explore the processes that created a completely uninhabitable environment and thus define the conditions that rule out bio-related signatures. We advocate a continued comprehensive study of our neighboring planet, to include models of early atmospheres, compositional abundances, and Venus-analog frequency analysis from current and future exoplanet data. Critically, new missions to Venus that provide in-situ data are necessary to address the major gaps in our current understanding, and to enable us to take the next steps in characterizing planetary habitability.