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Article: Venus express: a European spacecraft arrives this month to study our sister planet's runaway greenhouse effect.(EARTH)
- Article from:
- Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- April 7, 2006
- Author:
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The most ambitious part of President George W. Bush's vision for space exploration, announced two years ago, is a manned mission to Mars in 20 years. Because the average age of astronauts is 35, students now in middle and high school--perhaps students reading this magazine--may become the first humans to set foot on the Red Planet.
Sending astronauts to a closer but weirder planet--Venus--will probably take longer. The second rock from the sun has a surface temperature of 465 degrees Celsius (869 degrees Fahrenheit)--hot enough to melt lead. Its atmosphere is mostly poisonous carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]).
Fortunately, we can send unmanned craft, and this ...