Venus and Earth are very different places today. However, Venus may have been more Earth-like in the past. What led Venus and Earth down such different paths of planetary evolution? What geologic processes are taking place on Venus today? The upcoming VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy) mission will address longstanding questions about Venus, providing insights into Earth’s early history and how rocky planets evolve.

VERITAS will mark the first use of InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) to observe deformation on a planetary body other than Earth. InSAR is a radar technique that produces high-resolution maps of surface displacement without requiring the deployment of ground-based instruments. The high-resolution InSAR data collected by VERITAS’ VISAR (Venus Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) instrument will reveal whether Venus’ surface is actively deforming. InSAR is widely used to monitor volcanic activity on Earth. If volcanic surface deformation is observed on Venus, it would add compelling evidence to a growing body of observations suggesting that Venus is the only volcanically active planet in the solar system other than Earth. In this talk, I will discuss the VERITAS mission and my work preparing for its measurements of surface deformation on Venus.

Kate McCarthy is a second-year PhD student in Geophysics at Stanford University. In her research, Kate investigates the detectability of surface deformation on Venus using InSAR. She is a collaborator on NASA’s VERITAS mission to Venus. Kate received bachelor’s degrees in computer science and environmental sciences with a minor in astronomy from the University of Virginia. She first discovered her interest in planetary radar by helping to create an archive for Mars radar data at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.