Venus for the Romans, Aphrodite for the Greeks but for both, she is the goddess of love and beauty.I'm happy to report that we are one step closer to understanding our 'better halves' as yesterday we had a successful launch of the Venus Express orbiter from Baikonur. Borrowing upgraded technologies from Mars Express, this project took only three years from approval to launch.
Venus is Earth sister; but make no mistakes, while both have very similar chemical composition and size, that's were it ends. Temperature is around 470°C; hot enough to melt lead. It has a thick layer of clouds made of sulfuric acid and its surface level atmospheric pressure is about 90 times that on Earth! That explains why probes from the 60's never stayed intact for very long when attempting to land on it.
The mission's main purpose is to study the planet's atmosphere and investigate the runaway greenhouse effect we witness today. Eventually, also figure out why women seem to be so complicated :-)
Rendez-vous in 153 days to uncover our planetary companion's deepest secrets.
You can view the fregate's position here: [ Orbit view ]
Read more: [ BBC ]
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