Venus Express Blasts Off

kitzilla writes "The European Space Agency's Venus Express probe has been successfully launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The mission's first attempt was scrubbed last month after technicians spotted a problem with the lift vehicle. In about five months, Venus Express will pull into orbit around our closest planetary neighbor and begin five months of scheduled observations. On the short list of mission objectives: a detailed mapping of Venus' surface, a survey of the planet's complex atmosphere, and a look into the possibility of active Venusian volcanoes."

Comments

Re:For contrast

[VJ42]

There's a Video of the launch on the BBC

Watch the launch!

[Anonymous Coward]

37 megs, quicktime movie.

The ESA's Venus express portal

And a load of artist impressions, photos and cgi videos are on ESA's site here

A great day for the ESA, the data gathered from this and in comparison to that from the Mars Express is really going to give some good information on planetary warming and cooling.

Re:What's the use...

[meringuoid]

... of finding active volcanoes on Venus? Could someone get some practical use out of such a find?

Venus is an extreme case of climatology. It's about the same size as the Earth. It actually receives less sunlight than the Earth, even though it's closer to the Sun, because its cloud layer reflects so much incoming radiation. But it's hot hot hot.

That atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, with some nitrogen, water vapour and sulphur dioxide. It's hot, acidic, and the pressure is the sort of thing you only get on Earth in the deep seas.

Now, we have to wonder how Venus got that way. One possibility for how Venus got such a thick, acidic atmosphere is that it is continually undergoing massive volcanic activity. If we can observe Venusian volcanoes, we can determine to what extent they might reasonably affect the climate on Venus.

If we can understand Venus, then we can use it to stress-test our planetary climate models and thereby improve our understanding of comparable processes on Earth. It shouldn't be too hard to think of a reason why we might urgently want to improve our understanding of Earth's climate systems as regards atmospheric carbon dioxide content...

There's a very good writeup of Venus and why it's interesting here.