In stark contrast to Earth, Venus is an inhospitable world that highlights the diversity of the evolutionary pathways among terrestrial planets. Venus therefore serves as an important early-Earth analogue that may shed light on our planet’s history, as well as a template for close-in exoplanets which may be common and Venus-like.
However, as we enter a new era of exploration, many fundamental questions about Venus remain unanswered. Did Venus ever have a water ocean? How and when did its current intense greenhouse conditions develop? How do its internal structure and dynamics compare to Earth's? And how can we reconstruct its geological history?
This session aims to address the past, present, and future of Venus science and exploration, and what Venus can teach us about Earth as well as exo-Venus analogues.
We invite contributions to a wide range of topics, including interior processes, surface geology and geomorphology, and atmospheric dynamics. We welcome abstracts using methods including, but not limited to, analyses of new and legacy observations, mission concepts, Earth-Venus comparisons, exoplanet observations, and the latest laboratory and modeling approaches to solving Venus' mysteries.