Spaceship flying by Venus on Wednesday could help look for alien life - Business Insider
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the German Aerospace Center
BepiColumbo
Business Insider
Mercury
MERTIS
NASA
Banco de Imágenes Geológicas
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the European Space Agency
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
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Jörn Helbert
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Summary
What's more, it had an instrument on board that could potentially detect phosphine in the superheated planet's atmosphere."It's fantastic," Helbert told Business Insider of the timing. "That's why it's fantastic for Mercury, because it's a very hot planet with a strong heat signature."Venus is hot, too, but MERTIS was designed to detect minerals on a planet's surface, not gases in its atmosphere, like phosphine on Venus. So it's flying by Mercury six times – and before that, by Venus twice – to use the planets' gravitational forces to curb its speed.Even if Helbert's team cannot detect phosphine this week, they'll soon get another chance: In August 2021, the spacecraft will fly by Venus again.
As said here by Susie Neilson