Los Alamos National Laboratory sits on top of a once-remote mesa in northern New Mexico with the Jemez mountains as a backdrop to research and innovation covering multi-disciplines from bioscience, sustainable energy sources, to plasma physics and new materials.
Researchers are planning a laser tool that will rapidly measure the surface, and beneath the surface, of the planet whose hostile environment will likely destroy the lander after a few hours of operation. Top scientists aim for Venus planetary lander project LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, June 11, 2010—Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have developed instruments for Earth, the Moon, the Sun, Mars, Saturn, interstellar space, and the driving solar wind that flies between the planets. Now they're setting their sights on the planet Venus. As part of a proposed NASA mission called the Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer (SAGE), Los Alamos researchers are planning a laser tool that will rapidly measure the surface, and beneath the surface, of the planet whose hostile environment will likely destroy the lander after a few hours of operation. As part of the NASA New Frontiers competition, NASA funded the University of Colorado at Boulder for a one-year concept study of a Venus lander mission. SAGE is designed to study the history of Venus's atmosphere, climate, and surface to compare to Earth. SAGE would tell scientists about the history of Venus, why Venus is so different from Earth, and what this can tell us about Earth's fate.
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