VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy): Surface Science Objectives

The VERITAS mission is designed to understand Venus’ evolution through acquiring foundational, high resolution global datasets including those that inform our understanding of Venus’ surface and interior. VERITAS is the first in a trio of #DecadeofVenus missions, launching in December of 2027 and acquiring data beginning in 2029

VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy): A Selected Discovery Mission

VERITAS was selected as a Discovery class mission on June 2, 2021. It is designed to understand Venus’ evolution through acquiring foundational, high resolution global datasets. A deep understanding of planetary habitability requires identifying key factors that govern the environment over time. Venus is the ultimate control case for studying how Earth developed and maintained conditions suited to life. Venus is very likely to have had elements essential to habitability [1,2] such as (past) surface water and even a dynamo. Tectonism and volcanism, with associated outgassing and driven by a robust internal energy budget, very likely persist today. Current interactions among the interior, surface, and atmosphere may include exchange of volatiles

Habitability, Geodynamics, and the Case for Venus

Geodynamics, like Earth’s plate tectonics (PT), governs long-term planetary evolution and habitability. Beyond Earth, only Venus may have key elements of PT: subduction (the 1st step in PT) and continents. Revealing Venus’ geodynamics is key to understanding how PT began on Earth, and how to predict the geodynamic evolution of other rocky bodies

Marking out the pitch: a historiography and taxonomy of football fiction

Football, or soccer as it is more commonly referred to in Australia and the US, is arguably the world’s most popular sport. It generates a proportionate volume of related writing. Within this landscape, works of novel-length fiction are seemingly rare. This paper establishes and maps a substantial body of football fiction works, explores elements and qualities exhibited individually and collectively. In bringing together current, limited surveys of the field, it presents the first rigorous definition of football fiction and captures the first historiography of the corpus. Drawing on distant reading methods developed in conjunction with closer textual analyses, the historiography and subsequent taxonomy represent the first articulation of relationships across the body of work, identify growth areas and establish a number of movements and trends. In advancing the understanding of football fiction as a collective body, the paper lays foundations for further research and consideration of the works in generic terms