Image: Daniel Oberhaus
Wednesday, NASA outlined the five finalists for future planetary missions, one or two of which it will actually launch. Here are the objectives of those missions, which will cost about $500 million each (they are outlined in much more detail here by my colleague Becky Ferreira):
Becky is right. The gas must be studied. But it's worth remembering that our asteroid detection system is vastly underfunded and is only getting worse.
- Study noble gases surrounding Venus
- Create a topographical map of Venus
- Explore the metallic core of an asteroid called Psyche
- Investigate Jupiter's Trojan asteroids
- Watch Earth for asteroids that might kill us

