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Article: Venus Express zooms toward new finds about Earth's twin; The spacecraft will soon begin probing Venus's atmosphere - and could answer questions about life on other planets.(USA)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- April 10, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Peter N. Spotts Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The planet Venus moves to astronomy's center stage this week with the arrival of the European Space Agency's spacecraft.
The Venus Express orbiter is slated to reach Earth's neighbor early Tuesday morning. Roughly three weeks later, it will reach its operating orbit, where it will spend at least two Venusian days - 486 Earth days - probing the atmosphere in unprecedented detail and piercing the planet's cloudy veil to image the surface. Among the questions scientists would like to answer: Does the thick layer of acidic clouds actually represent a potential habitat for simple forms of ...