For nearly 10 years, there’s been only one spacecraft able to keep its cool above the hellish landscape of Venus. The Japanese Akatsuki probe was sent to Earth’s neighboring planet to observe its atmospheric dynamics, but the lone Venusian mission has suddenly gone quiet.
The surface of Venus is littered with thousands of volcanoes, some of which may still be active until today. A fresh look at 30-year-old radar images captured by the Magellan spacecraft revealed new lava flows on Venus, suggesting that the planet was volcanically active between 1990 to 1992.
The EnVision mission to Venus was officially adopted by the European Space Agency on Thursday, which means the organization has committed to getting the spacecraft Venus-bound by the early 2030s.
