I volunteered to run camera on another Caltech Stargazing Lecture on Friday night. Dr. Amy Hoffman discussed the DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) Mission to Venus, aiming for a launch in 2029.
I didn’t know much about Venus going into this but learned so much during the talk:
We’ve got the balmy, average temperature here of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. That feels kind of nice, right? Venus’ average surface temperature is 870 degrees Fahrenheit. What about Mars? Minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit; remember 32 degrees Fahrenheit is where we hit freezing. (0:21:44–0:22:03)
Then, there’s the pressure. It’s about 95 times that of Earth. So as Dr. Hoffman described, “Things tend to get cooked and crushed in short order” (0:20:54). It’s a great talk and inspired me to appreciate Venus a lot more.
You can check out the full presentation here:
https://www.youtube.com/live/1algocTiwFg
“What Happened to Venus? NASA’s DAVINCI Mission.” YouTube, uploaded by Caltech Astro, 18 Sept. 2026, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1algocTiwFg.