Sensor for Determining Single Droplet Acidities in the Venusian Atmosphere

Abstract

The cloud layers of Venus are known to have pressures and temperatures comparable to those on Earth, but, at the same time, many details about the environment inside them are unknown. The early consensus was that Venusian clouds are composed of droplets of near concentrated sulfuric acid with very limited water availability; newer models, however, suggest a pH range between −1 and 1, and these imply some form of a neutralizing agent and potentially complex chemical cycles. It is also possible that different populations of cloud particles have different acidities. To answer these questions, we propose an in situ acidity sensor that can statistically determine the acidities of individual cloud droplets from concentrated sulfuric acid (18 M) to deionized water, based on the fluorescence of a pigment that is immobilized in a film and read out using a set of excited LEDs and a camera. Here, we present the preliminary research and prototyping results and suggest a possible design for this sensor.