Road trip to venus!

November 13, 2005 6:53 AM

Road trip to venus!

The Venus Express was launched on Nov. 9th, 2005 from Baikonur, the historic spaceport in Kazakhstan. It is the first Venus probe sent by the ESA , and you can follow it's progress on the six month journey to the planet.

Exploration of Venus begin in 1962 with Mariner 2, the first space probe to fly by another planet and other flights, including the Russian Venera 7, which was the first probe to land on another planet. The Soviets took quite an interest in Venus and dominated the exploration of the planet through the '70s and '80s. A lot of the images recorded by those early craft have been reprocessed with modern technology.

In the early '90s the Magellan spacecraft spent several years mapping the surface of Venus, providing us many, many, many images and 3D maps of the planet.

As for Venus Express, it's goal is to spend two years making detailed studys of the planet's clouds and atmosphere.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (19 comments total)

Great post, especially for a Sunday. Time to explore...
posted by sdrawkcab at 7:00 AM on November 13, 2005

agreed. billions and billions of links...
thanks.
posted by Busithoth at 7:15 AM on November 13, 2005

Fantastic post! I particularly love the Astronomy Picture of the Day. The archive contains some really amazing images. Click on today's picture only if you've had enough coffee...

Thanks for posting this!
posted by sarahmelah at 7:27 AM on November 13, 2005

Oh sure, spellbind me, enchant me, and make me wish I was born a thousand years in the future (so that I could travel to these places). What a way to start a sunday.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:40 AM on November 13, 2005

My god... It's full of links...
posted by dazed_one at 8:07 AM on November 13, 2005

Great post... but for so many words, shouldn't you have used your inside voice?
posted by jmccorm at 8:26 AM on November 13, 2005

Excellent post, I particularly like the Windows of the Universe link, with it's Beginner, Intermediate and Advaced option for every page. I can now share some cool moments with my 8 year old. This is why I joined MeFi so again, big thanks
posted by Wilder at 8:40 AM on November 13, 2005

The things you see on the internet .. really pleased I've seen this post.

re: My god... It's full of links...

The book is serialised on the BBC. Alas only 15 minute chunks / week. Now 6/10.

Direct (realplayer). But H.A.L. sounds nothing like H.A.L.
posted by Schroder at 8:47 AM on November 13, 2005

I've always been fascinated with Soviet space exploration. The best site I've seen is the fantastic Russian Space Web, which has everything, great design and graphics to boot.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:16 AM on November 13, 2005

We're heading for Venus
And still we stand tall
Cause maybe they've seen us
And welcome us all
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:25 AM on November 13, 2005

Awesome post, thanks especially for the anaglyph Venus goodness.
posted by interrobang at 9:46 AM on November 13, 2005

Here's some complementary Mars 3-D stuff.
posted by interrobang at 9:48 AM on November 13, 2005

Security! Security!

We were speaking of Venus and Venusexpress, filthy little red planet ragamuffin! We'll have none of your sort coming in and messing our party before it's even properly started! We're having a perfectly happy time discussing Venus, and it's exploration which anyone of breeding knows is a far superior planet.

Sargent-at-arms, arrest that man and feed him to the Intelligent Design crowd!

Honestly, the nerve of people these days.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:06 AM on November 13, 2005

Okay, sorry. Here's a terrible recording of "Destination Venus" to make up for my indescretion.
posted by interrobang at 10:25 AM on November 13, 2005

Wow, this is great. I had no idea the Soviet Union made ten(!) landings on Venus.
posted by mediareport at 10:47 AM on November 13, 2005

Brandon, I mean this constructively, you should become familiar with "its" vs. "it's". Smart(TM) people's eyes glaze over and move on to the next item when they see basic grammatical errors like this. I see this All The Time on Slashdot and the like, but here you really should get it right. Jus' sayin'.
posted by intermod at 4:49 PM on November 13, 2005

Also, "study" -> "studies".

But this is an excellent FPP anyway, so there.
posted by trigonometry at 4:50 PM on November 13, 2005

Intermod, if you're in a hurry just skip to the (2) for a quick response.

If, however, you got a few minutes feel free to read the following:

Intermod, I mean this constructively, you should become familiar with causal settings and converstation. People without a stick up their ass and a need to correct publicly correct complete strangers on minor grammar points roll their eyes and assign you to the "man, he NEVER gets laid" category, which makes you unattractive, thus perpuating(*) the cycle and then you wind up home, alone except for a Miss March, 1996, surfing the web and correcting other peoples gramar, while the rest of read and/or make interesting posts (which may contain a few grammatical errors, but somehow the world moves on) which makes us sound interesting and thus get laid.

Jus' sayin'.

*Yeah, I know it's perpetuating, but now you and the Smart People have something to get snippy about, so you're happy.



(2) Fuck off.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:11 PM on November 13, 2005

Well, *that* can't be the last word in a thread about the goddess of love.

intermod: You tried to keep it light and fun, but need more practice. Truly Smart People(TM) know how to read through other folks' common grammatical errors, and recognize that not every stranger's mistake needs a callout.

Brandon: Just in case, if "it is" doesn't work in the sentence, don't use "it's." You messed up in the post as well as the comment, so intermod can be forgiven for caring enough to give you a heads up that some folks online judge other folks' intellect based on things like that.

Now, back to Venus.
posted by mediareport at 11:26 PM on November 13, 2005