- Why did Venera 1 need to be launched toward a point in space where Venus would be months later rather than where it currently was?
- What caused Venera 1 to lose contact with ground control before it reached Venus?
- How close did Venera 1 pass to Venus, and why did its flyby produce no data despite being the first of its kind?
- How did later probes reveal that Venus was more hostile than scientists had hoped when Venera 1 was launched?
Venus Exploration
Missions and science concerning Venus.
- What surface temperature did Mariner 2 measure on Venus, and what did that rule out about habitability?
- How did Mariner 2 confirm the existence of the solar wind?
- Why did the first Mariner probe to Venus fail before Mariner 2 succeeded?
- How did Mariner 2's findings overturn the science-fiction image of a habitable Venus?
- What did a century of telescopic observation lead scientists to believe about Mars before Mariner 4's flyby?
- What did Mariner 4's 22 photographs actually show about the Martian surface and atmosphere?
- How did JPL teams process and view Mariner 4's images before the digital processing was even complete?
- How did Mariner 4's findings reshape the scientific and public debate about life on Mars?
- Why was Venera 3 never expected to survive contact with the Venusian surface?
- How far did Venera 3 travel, and what tools did engineers use to calculate its interplanetary trajectory in 1965?
- Why is Venera 3 considered a navigational triumph despite returning no scientific data from Venus?
- How did Venera 3's flight pave the way for later Soviet probes that eventually returned data from Venus's surface?
- How was Venus's atmosphere studied before Venera 4 sent back direct measurements?
- What temperature, pressure, and composition data did Venera 4 transmit before it was crushed?
- Why is Venus considered a real-world example of a runaway greenhouse effect?
- How long did Venera 4 survive its descent, and what ultimately ended its transmission?
- What did Mariner 6 and 7 measure about the composition and pressure of the Martian atmosphere?
- What geological features did Mariner 6 and 7 image without immediately understanding them?
- How did Mariner 6 and 7's findings build on what Mariner 4 discovered in 1965?
- How long did Venera 5 and 6 transmit data before being destroyed by Venus's atmosphere?
- What did the Venera probes reveal about the composition and pressure of Venus's atmosphere?
- Why were Venera 5 and 6 considered successes even though the probes were destroyed?
- What happened when Mariner 9 arrived at Mars in November 1971, and how did the mission team respond?
- What did Mariner 9's images reveal about Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris once the dust storm cleared?
- How did Mariner 9's photographs of sinuous channels change scientific thinking about water on Mars?
- Why was Mariner 9 the first spacecraft to orbit another planet rather than simply flying past it?
- Why was it uncertain whether a spacecraft could survive passing through the asteroid belt before Pioneer 10?
- What did Pioneer 10 discover about Jupiter's radiation belts, and how did that damage the spacecraft?
- What was depicted on the gold plaque Pioneer 10 carried into interstellar space, and why was it included?
- How did Pioneer 11 use Jupiter's gravity to redirect itself toward Saturn?
- What did Pioneer 11 discover during its 1979 flyby of Saturn?
- How close did Pioneer 11 come to Saturn during its closest approach, and what path did it take?
- What is the purpose of the plaque carried aboard Pioneer 11 as it heads beyond the heliosphere?
- What engineering challenges did Soviet designers have to solve to build a probe that could survive on the surface of Venus?
- How much longer did Venera 13 operate on the Venusian surface than it was designed to?
- What did the first colour photographs of the Venusian surface actually show?
- Why does the atmospheric pressure on Venus's surface make landing a spacecraft there so much harder than on Mars or the Moon?
- What is depicted on the plaque that Pioneer 10 carries, and what was it meant to communicate?
- How many years and how much distance did it take Pioneer 10 to cross Neptune's orbit after its 1972 launch?
- How long did NASA's Deep Space Network keep receiving signals from Pioneer 10 after it left the solar system's major planets?
- How fast is Pioneer 10 traveling through interstellar space today?
- Why was Magellan the first interplanetary spacecraft to be carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle?
- How did synthetic-aperture radar let Magellan map Venus's surface through its thick clouds?
- What did the near-total absence of ancient impact craters on Venus reveal about its geological history?
- How did Magellan's synthetic-aperture radar see through Venus's permanent sulphuric acid cloud deck?
- What resolution did Magellan achieve when mapping the surface of Venus, and how much of the planet did it cover?
- What did the near-total absence of impact craters suggest about the age and history of Venus's surface?
- What did Jane Greaves and colleagues detect in the cloud deck of Venus in September 2020?
- Why was the phosphine detection on Venus contested and revised after the initial announcement?