Researchers working on instrumented balloons to detect Venusquakes

High surface temperatures and atmospheric pressures make it technologically challenging to place seismometers on Venus, so researchers are working on balloon-borne instruments to detect Venusquakes without landing any hardware on the planet's extreme surface.

Siddharth Krishnamoorthy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and colleagues are developing instrumented balloons that would fly in Venus' middle atmosphere, where temperatures and pressures are more hospitable than at the planet's surface.

While researchers are still adjusting the design of balloons and their payloads, their skin is designed to be resistant to atmospheric sulfuric acid as well as to reflect as much sunlight as possible to keep their buoyant helium cool and long-lasting.

At the Seismological Society of America's Annual Meeting, Krishnamoorthy said that the instrumentation for seismoacoustic detection is basically mature. According to him, the bigger challenge facing upcoming missions is to collect and characterize more balloon-based seismoacoustic data from events on Earth so that any signals detected on Venus can be identified properly.

The team is preparing for an eventual Venus mission by studying the small but increasing amount of data from balloon-based seismoacoustic studies on Earth, including signals from one earthquake that they were able to detect. Combined with Venus ground and atmosphere models, the researchers hope to eventually use seismoacoustic data to calculate the magnitude and location of seismic events on the planet.

Planetary seismology helps scientists explore the interior of planets. Seismic data gathered on Venus will help researchers learn more about it - why the once-Earth-like planet became so inhospitable?

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