Pioneer Venus Spacecraft

After circling Venus for 14 years, the Pioneer Venus orbiter ran out of thruster propellant Saturday and is expected to plunge toward the planet this week, a NASA spokesman said. The probe is likely to burn up upon entry into Venus' atmosphere, the spokesman said. The orbiter was the first U.S. spacecraft to circle Venus. It was expected to last only one Venusian year--243 days.

After circling Venus for 14 years, the Pioneer Venus orbiter ran out of thruster propellant Saturday and is expected to plunge toward the planet this week, a NASA spokesman said. The probe is likely to burn up upon entry into Venus' atmosphere, the spokesman said. The orbiter was the first U.S. spacecraft to circle Venus. It was expected to last only one Venusian year--243 days.

While a new era of missions to Mars is beginning, explorations of our nearest planetary neighbor are coming to a close, at least for the foreseeable future. Two spacecraft that have collected far more detail than expected about Venus are preparing to send their last rounds of data to Earth.

While a new era of missions to Mars is beginning, explorations of our nearest planetary neighbor are coming to a close, at least for the foreseeable future. Two spacecraft that have collected far more detail than expected about Venus are preparing to send their last rounds of data to Earth.

The idea that Venus has lightning produced by volcanoes is based on faulty reasoning and from all indications the planet is volcanically dead, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said. Harry Taylor Jr., a senior scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and Paul Cloutier of Rice University in Houston, writing in the weekly journal Science, said the idea evolved from probes by the U.S.

Solar flares and weather problems have delayed for two weeks a close-up image of Halley's comet at its closest approach to the sun, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. The photographic image produced from an ultraviolet light spectrograph aboard the Pioneer Venus orbiter spacecraft was to be released today at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View.

Each July and August, blue ice lakes form on the surface of glaciers near the U.S. research station at Sondre Stromfjord in southern Greenland. Belying the pristine Greenland air and the clean-swept beauty of the glaciers, the bottoms of the lakes are covered with black organic goo. The tar is not the residue of an oil spill, nor is it any other detritus of civilization.