European space vessel to probe mysteries of toxic planet

A EUROPEAN space probe went into orbit around Venus yesterday after a 400 million kilometre journey to peer into its toxic atmosphere.

The 1.3 ton Venus Express took off on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan last November.

Venus Express, the first European probe to Venus, is due to spend 486 Earth days - or just two Venusian days - studying its hot, dense atmosphere, which is choked with 96% carbon dioxide.

"Everything went as it was planned, clearly, without difficulties", Gaele Winters, European Space Agency (ESA) director of operations, told a news conference. "This is a great success," he said.

At 120 million km from Earth, the craft fired its main engine for 51 minutes to help reduce its speed of 29,000kph and slip into Venus's gravitational pull.

It will first spend nine days ranging between 350,000km-400,000km from the planet before going into regular orbit.

Venus Express - a virtual copy of the Mars Express now orbiting the Red Planet - carries seven powerful instruments to probe the thick swirl of clouds covering Venus. It will also examine the 400kph winds raging in the skies 60km above the planet's surface.

Mission scientists believe the trip may yield findings useful for understanding global warming on Earth.

Venus appears to be an example of runaway global warming, with a weather system that works in a vicious circle to store up solar heat.

Venus Express will take another four weeks to reach its operational orbit before sending back data from a hellish atmosphere made up mainly of carbon monoxide and clouds of sulphuric acid where temperatures average 450C.

But in other respects, including size, mass and composition, Venus closely resembles Earth and scientists will use the data to look for answers as to why so near a counterpart has evolved so differently over the last 4,600 million years.

Shrouded by a layer of clouds 12 miles thick and buffeted by extremes of temperature and pressure, Venus is Earth's nearest planetary neighbour but is an enigma to science.

Its dense atmosphere creates a supercharged greenhouse effect, spinning round the planet in four days in a 'super rotation' phenomenon that scientists cannot explain.

Some researchers have said there may once have been life on Venus. They hope to obtain clues about greenhouse conditions on Venus and if any comparisons about global warming on Earth can be drawn.

It will orbit the planet's poles well above the cloud cover collecting data with instruments designed to build on observations from previous missions. One Venus day is equivalent to 243 Earth days. No space probe that has gone into the planet's atmosphere has survived for long, with a Russian device setting the record of 110 minutes before melting in the heat.

Priced at a relatively modest €220 million and built by firms from 14 countries, the Venus Express underlines the ambition of European scientists to be at the cutting edge of exploring the universe.