We're about to find out what part of the solar system NASA will explore next
Where do you want to go in the solar system? Venus? A metal-rich asteroid? Well, on Wednesday, NASA will tell us where it's going next.
The space agency is set to announce its choice for one (or possibly even two) of its next big robotic missions that will push our understanding of the solar system to new heights.
The missions -- which were proposed under the agency's Discovery program -- could send a spacecraft to Venus, asteroids or on a hunt for possibly dangerous cosmic objects near Earth by the early 2020s.
In 2015, NASA announced the five finalists for this Discovery program mission, and since then, the agency has given each mission $3 million for "concept design studies and analyses," according to a NASA statement.
And now the moment of truth has arrived. NASA will announce which mission (or missions) it has chosen for full development during a press conference at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday. (You can listen to it live via NASA.)
In NASA's words, the possible missions are:
The Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy mission (VERITAS) would produce global, high-resolution topography and imaging of Venus' surface and produce the first maps of deformation and global surface composition.
Psyche would explore the origin of planetary cores by studying the metallic asteroid Psyche. This asteroid is likely the survivor of a violent hit-and-run with another object that stripped off the outer, rocky layers of a protoplanet.
Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) would discover 10 times more near-Earth objects than all NEOs discovered to date. It would also begin to characterize them.
Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) would study the chemical composition of Venus' atmosphere during a 63-minute descent. It would answer scientific questions that have been considered high priorities for many years, such as whether there are volcanoes active today on the surface of Venus and how the surface interacts with the atmosphere of the planet.
Lucy would perform the first reconnaissance of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, objects thought to hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system.
Here's something else that's pretty cool about these missions: Four of the five are led by women, which ain't too shabby considering the fact that women have historically been underrepresented in space science.
These five missions were picked from 27 proposals submitted to the agency in 2014, and if chosen, the missions are expected to cost a total of about $500 million. (For reference, the Mars-exploring Curiosity rover cost about $2.5 billion.)
Whichever mission is selected will be in good company.
The Discovery program, created in 1992, was responsible for launching the Messenger spacecraft to Mercury, the Kepler telescope to search the sky for alien planets around distant stars and other missions to far-flung parts of the solar system.
Now it's time to see what comes next.
Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
