14 DAY TRIAL // "A fantastic moment. We are finally around Venus," said Don McCoy, the Canadian head of the project. And indeed, everything went as planed: at some 120 million kilometers from Earth, the craft fired its main engine for 51 minutes, reduced its speed and slipped into Venus' gravitational pull. During the following nine days the craft will descend 150 000 kilometers and enter into regular orbit.
Venus Express is a virtual copy of the Mars Express now orbiting the Red Planet and is the first probe sent to Venus by the European Space Agency. It carries seven powerful instruments to probe the thick swirl of clouds covering Venus in search of geological information and evidence of volcanic activity.
Scientists are especially interested in Venus' runaway green house effect. Venus' atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide and its weather system seems to be caught in a vicious circle: the increased heat increases the amount of carbon dioxide and the increased amount of carbon dioxide increases the stored heat. The ground temperatures on Venus reach around 460 degrees Celsius.
"Study of the clouds layer could provide a better knowledge of the physics of the greenhouse effect ... which could contribute to refining terrestrial models" for the phenomenon, said Jean-Loup Bertaux, who is working on the project. Hopefully, the study of Venus' greenhouse effect will help scientists create better climatic models for Earth's atmosphere, better quantifying the greenhouse effect caused by the use of fossil fuels.
"To better understand our own planet, we need to explore other worlds in particular those with an atmosphere," said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General. "We've been on Titan and we already are around Mars. By observing Venus and its complex atmospheric system, we will be able to better understand the mechanisms that steers the evolution of a large planetary atmosphere and the change of climates."
Researchers are also curious about the incredible winds raging at around 400 km/h, 60 kilometers above the planet's surface. The cause of these winds is not yet known.
Venus Express was built by the European satellite company EADS Astrium and launched on November 9, 2005, from the Baikonur base in Kazakhstan. Its cost is around 220-million-euros (264-million-dollars).