Venus mysteries blamed on colossal collision

New Venusian visitor?
Aside from planning to create a detailed computer model for the hypothesized mega-collision, as has been done for moon formation theory, Davies said another way to test his idea is to send a new spacecraft to Venus.

Russia's space program successfully landed nearly 10 spacecraft on Venus' surface in the 1970s and 1980s. But Davies said none of them scouted for water-containing minerals such as mica — evidence that would challenge his hypothesis.

"They made remote chemical measurements of the surface," Davies said, but none indicated hydrated rocks. "If a new spacecraft finds a lot of hydrated minerals, it would show there is still abundant water on Venus. Then my hypothesis would be out."

Spacecraft that have recently encountered Venus can't detect such minerals from space, he said, because of a layer of reflective hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere.

"A rover of some sort could scout for such minerals before it fails from the intense heat, or maybe a satellite below the hydrogen sulfide (layer)," he said.

ESA/ MPS/DLR/IDA Venus’s atmosphere, taken by the Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) during Venus Express in 2007.

Boss, however, said even detecting such minerals might not rule out a collision.

"Water can always be added as a 'late veneer' by ... icy planetesimals that helped finish building the planet," Boss said, although Davies thinks comets and other such bodies could only deliver a small amount of water to the planet.

Even if hydrated rocks on Venus' surface could rule out a cataclysmic formation, other data could provide better clues to the planet's origins, Francis Nimmo of the University of California Santa Cruz thinks.

"There a lot of things that would be very nice to do on Venus, like put a seismometer on the surface," said Nimmo, a planetary scientist. "The reason we know anything about Earth's interior is from such devices."

Whether or not someone launches a new spacecraft to scout out Venus' surface, and whatever its scientific mission is, Davies said it will have to investigate quickly.

"You have to take all of your measurements before the lander, or whatever it is, quite literally burns up," Davies said. "The longest any spacecraft has lasted is less than two hours."

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