Artist's impression of one of the Soviet Union's two Vega balloon probes as it floats in the clouds of Venus. The parent spacecraft,Vega 1 and 2 were launched,respectively,on 15/12/84 and 21/12/84. Vega 1 flew by Venus and released a descent capsule,containing the balloon-bourne probe and a landing module,on 11/6/85,with Vega 2 following suit four days later. Both spacecraft then continued towards their successful encounter with Halley's comet in March 1986. The 3. 4 m diameter balloons carried experiments to study temperature,pressure,lightning,cloud densities and vertical wind speeds. In this image an active cloud detector is emitting an infrared sensing beam. Colour version of R280/007 | |
Licence : | Droits gérés |
Crédit: | Science Photo Library / NASA / JPL |
Taille de l’image : | 2685 px × 3543 px |
Model Release : | Non requis |
Property Release : | Non requis |
Restrictions : | - |