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The text discusses the second workshop on the potential habitability of the Venus cloud layer, which was held by the Roscosmos/IKI-NASA Joint Science Definition Team for Russia's Venera-D mission. The workshop featured presentations and panel discussions with participants from 36 different countries. The text also mentions the delays in publishing a collection of Venus-relevant papers due to the global COVID pandemic, geopolitical developments, and budget pressures. It highlights the progress made in new discoveries and investigations, including the detection of phosphine in the venusian atmosphere and the observation of geologic signatures of active volcanism. The text concludes by mentioning upcoming missions to Venus and the potential for paradigm-shifting results in the field of astrobiology. [Extracted from the article]

We show that solar irradiances calculated across Venus' clouds support the potential for Earth-like phototrophy and that treatment of Venus' aerosols containing neutralized sulfuric acid favor a habitable zone. The phototrophic potential of Venus' atmosphere was assessed by calculating irradiances (200–2000 nm, 15° solar zenith angle, local noon) using a radiative transfer model that accounted for absorption and scattering by the major and minor atmospheric constituents. Comparisons to Earth's surface (46 W m−2, 280–400 nm) suggest that Venus' middle and lower clouds receive ∼87% less normalized UV flux (6–7 W m−2) across 200–400 nm, yet similar normalized photon flux densities (∼4400–6200 μmol m−2 s−1) across 350–1200 nm. Further, Venus' signature phototrophic windows and subwindows overlap with the absorption profiles of several photosynthetic pigments, especially bacteriochlorophyll b from intact cells and phycocyanin. Therefore, Venus' light, with limited UV flux in the middle and lower clouds, is likely quite favorable for phototrophy. We additionally present interpretations to refractive index and radio occultation measures for Venus' aerosols that suggest the presence of lower sulfuric abundances and/or neutralized forms of sulfuric acid, such as ammonium bisulfate. Under these considerations, the aerosols in Venus' middle clouds could harbor water activities (≥0.6) and buffered acidities (Hammett acidity factor, H0 -0.1 to -1.5) that lie within the limits of acidic cultivation (≥H0 -0.4) and are tantalizingly close to the limits of oxygenic photosynthesis (≥H0 0.1). Together, these photophysical and chemical considerations support a potential for phototrophy in Venus' clouds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) carried by European Space Agency’s Venus Express orbiter (Svedhem et al., 2007) consists of four optical units, each with a separate filter casting an image on a single CCD ( Markiewicz et al., 2007a , 2007b ). The desire to capture as much of the planet in a single frame during the spacecraft’s 24 h, 0.84 eccentricity orbit led to optics with 18° field of view. Analysis of Venus images obtained by the VMC indicated that the computed limb radius and altitude of haze layers were somewhat inconsistent with prior knowledge and expectations. Possible causes include errors in the knowledge of image geometry, misalignment of the optic axis from the pointing direction, and optical distortion. These were explored and eliminated, leaving only deviations from the ground and pre-solar damage estimate of the focal length lengths as the most likely reason. We use the location of planet’s limb to estimate the focal length of each camera using images of the planet when the orbiter was more than 20,000 km from planet center. The method relies on the limb radius to be constant at least over a small range of solar zenith angles. We were able to achieve better estimates for the focal lengths for all four cameras and also estimate small offsets to the boresight alignment. An outcome of this analysis is the finding that the slant unit optical depth varies more rapidly with solar zenith angle in the afternoon as compared to morning, with lowest values at local noon. A variation of this level is also observed with latitude. Both are indicative of the presence of overlying haze above the clouds, and the morning afternoon asymmetry suggests different photochemical processes in destruction and production of the haze. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aerosol phase elements such as phosphorus (P), sulfur (S), and metals including iron (Fe) are essential nutrients that could help sustain potential biodiversity in the cloud deck of Venus. While the presence of S and Fe in the venusian cloud deck has been broadly discussed (Zasova et al.,1981; Krasnopolsky, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017; Markiewicz et al.,2014), less attention has been given to the presence of P in the aerosols and its involvement in the multiphase chemistry of venusian clouds and potential sources of P deposition in the venusian atmosphere. A detailed characterization of phosphorus atmospheric chemistry in the cloud deck of Venus is crucial for understanding its solubility and bioavailability for potential venusian cloud microbiota (Schulze-Makuch et al.,2004; Grinspoon and Bullock, 2007; Limaye et al.,2018). We summarize our current understanding of the presence of P in the clouds of Venus and its role in a hypothetical atmospheric (bio)chemical cycle. The results of the VeGa lander measurements are put into perspective with regard to nutrient limitation for a potential biosphere in venusian clouds. Our work combines the results of the VeGa measurements and focuses on P as an inorganic nutrient component and its potential sources and chemical behavior as part of multiple transformations of atmospheric chemistry. The VeGa data indicate that a plentiful phosphorus layer exists within a layer that reaches into the lower venusian clouds and exceeds minimum P abundances for terrestrial microbial life. Extreme acidification of airborne phases in the atmosphere of Venus may facilitate P solubilization and its bioavailability for a potential ecosystem in venusian clouds. Further sampling and P abundance measurements in the atmosphere of Venus would improve our knowledge of P speciation and facilitate determination of a bioavailable fraction of P detected in venusian clouds. The previous results deserve further experimental and modeling analyses to diminish uncertainties and understand the rates of atmospheric deposition of P and its role in a potential venusian cloud ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lightweight, low-power instrument package to measure, in situ, both (1) the local gaseous environment and (2) the composition and microphysical properties of attendant venusian aerosols is presented. This Aerosol-Sampling Instrument Package (ASIP) would be used to explore cloud chemical and possibly biotic processes on future aerial missions such as multiweek balloon missions and on short-duration (<1 h) probes on Venus and potentially on other cloudy worlds such as Titan, the Ice Giants, and Saturn. A quadrupole ion-trap mass spectrometer (QITMS; Madzunkov and Nikolić, J Am Soc Mass Spectrom 25:1841–1852, 2014) fed alternately by (1) an aerosol separator that injects only aerosols into a vaporizer and mass spectrometer and (2) the pure aerosol-filtered atmosphere, achieves the compositional measurements. Aerosols vaporized <600°C are measured over atomic mass ranges from 2 to 300 AMU at <0.02 AMU resolution, sufficient to measure trace materials, their isotopic ratios, and potential biogenic materials embedded within H2SO4 aerosols, to better than 20% in <300 s for H2SO4 -relative abundances of 2 × 10−9. An integrated lightweight, compact nephelometer/particle-counter determines the number density and particle sizes of the sampled aerosols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Since the discovery of ultraviolet markings on Venus, their observations have been a powerful tool to study the morphology, motions and dynamical state at the cloud top level. Here we present the results of investigation of the cloud top morphology performed by the Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) during more than 3years of the Venus Express mission. The camera acquires images in four narrow-band filters centered at 365, 513, 965 and 1010nm with spatial resolution from 50km at apocentre to a few hundred of meters at pericentre. The VMC experiment provides a significant improvement in the Venus imaging as compared to the capabilities of the earlier missions. The camera discovered new cloud features like bright “lace clouds” and cloud columns at the low latitudes, dark polar oval and narrow circular and spiral “grooves” in the polar regions, different types of waves at the high latitudes. The VMC observations revealed detailed structure of the sub-solar region and the afternoon convective wake, the bow-shape features and convective cells, the mid-latitude transition region and the “polar cap”. The polar orbit of the satellite enables for the first time nadir viewing of the Southern polar regions and an opportunity to zoom in on the planet. The experiment returned numerous images of the Venus limb and documented global and local brightening events. VMC provided almost continuous monitoring of the planet with high temporal resolution that allowed one to follow changes in the cloud morphology at various scales. We present the in-flight performance of the instrument and focus in particular on the data from the ultraviolet channel, centered at the characteristic wavelength of the unknown UV absorber that yields the highest contrasts on the cloud top. Low latitudes are dominated by relatively dark clouds that have mottled and fragmented appearance clearly indicating convective activity in the sub-solar region. At ∼50° latitude this pattern gives way to streaky clouds suggesting that horizontal, almost laminar, flow prevails here. Poleward from about 60°S the planet is covered by almost featureless bright polar hood sometimes crossed by dark narrow (∼300km) spiral or circular structures. This global cloud pattern can change on time scales of a few days resulting in global and local “brightening events” when the bright haze can extend far into low latitudes and/or increase its brightness by 30%. Close-up snapshots reveal plenty of morphological details like convective cells, cloud streaks, cumulus-like columns, wave trains. Different kinds of small scale waves are frequently observed at the cloud top. The wave activity is mainly observed in the 65–80° latitude band and is in particular concentrated in the region of Ishtar Terra that suggests their possible orographic origin. The VMC observations have important implications for the problems of the unknown UV absorber, microphysical processes, dynamics and radiative energy balance at the cloud tops. They are only briefly discussed in the paper, but each of them will be the subject of a dedicated study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]