[Monday, February 1, 2010] In announcing its $19.0 billion FY 2011 NASA budget today, the Obama Administration has made it very clear that it intends to attempt a paradigm shift in the way that America explores and utilizes space.

[Wednesday, December 30, 2009] NASA has awarded the University of Colorado at Boulder $3.3 million for a detailed, one-year concept study for a lander mission to Venus to study the history of its surface, climate and atmosphere and to predict its ultimate fate in the solar system.

[Wednesday, December 23, 2009] The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been holding the "AKATSUKI Message Campaign" in order to enhance people's interest in Venus and to make people feel familiar with the Venus Climate Orbiter "AKATSUKI".

[Tuesday, July 14, 2009] Venus Express has charted the first map of Venus's southern hemisphere at infrared wavelengths. The new map hints that our neighbouring world may once have been more Earth-like, with both, a plate tectonics system and an ocean of water.

[Tuesday, February 24, 2009] ESA's Venus Express spacecraft has observed an eerie glow in the night-time atmosphere of Venus.

[Tuesday, December 30, 2008] NASA is developing potential proposals for the upcoming New Frontiers Program Announcement of Opportunity (2009) that involve multiple strategies for Venus exploration.

[Thursday, December 18, 2008] Venus Express has made the first detection of an atmospheric loss process on Venus's day-side. Last year, the spacecraft revealed that most of the lost atmosphere escapes from the night-side.

[Wednesday, December 3, 2008] A pale yellow dot to the human eye, Earth's twin planet comes to life in the ultraviolet and the infrared. New images taken by instruments on board ESA's Venus Express provide insight into the turbulent atmosphere of our neighbouring planet.

[Friday, October 10, 2008] The images of Earth cover both visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum and can be split into spectra, in order to search for the signature of molecules in the Earth's atmosphere.

[Monday, September 22, 2008] Data from the VMC, SPICAV-SOIR, VIRTIS and MAG instruments on Venus Express have been delivered to the ESA Planetary System Archive and are now freely available to interested users.

   »» More top stories from December.