The Venus Express probe was launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan as part of a European Space Agency (ESA) mission in November 2005, with the aim of conducting remote research of the atmosphere of Earth's closest planet.
Dmitri Titov, Venus Express science coordinator said in Germany: "The spacecraft has revealed the structure and movements of the atmosphere, from its upper reaches to just above the surface, and has obtained the best global map of atmospheric temperatures to date. This is already improving our understanding of the global dynamics and the meteorology of Venus."
Alexander Vorobyov, press secretary of Russia's space agency said on Thursday: "The research results give us basis to suppose that Venus was in fact once the spitting image of the Earth and, not only as far as dimensions are concerned, but also by the processes which took place on the surface, but then they drifted apart."
The research has revealed a number of surprising phenomena so far. The ESA press release said that the research had proved that Venus has an atmosphere the "densest of all the rocky planets," which is being constantly stripped away by solar wind together with the planet's water as it does not have a magnetic shield like Earth.
In addition, lightning on the planet, which was considered controversial, has been confirmed by the data leading to a better understanding of the planet and its climate evolution.
Fred Taylor, a Venus Express interdisciplinary scientist from the U.K. described Venus as "Earth's twin, but separated at birth."
More than 250 scientists and engineers from various European countries including Russia are taking part in the Venus Express mission.
