Certainly, the 60-80s of the last century were the decades of the dawn of astronautics. A huge number of ships were launched, each of which had a specific purpose, made it possible to learn a little more about other planets, stars, and space itself. And almost the most interesting object for scientists was Venus. Let's talk about her and her research.
Who discovered Venus?
According to some experts, the ancient Maya discovered this planet in the seventh century BC.
It wasn't difficult to do - it is the brightest object in the night sky, except for the Moon.
But it is known for sure that among European scientists, Galileo Galilei was the first to become seriously interested in this planet. The history of the exploration of Venus began with him. He discovered the planet in 1610 using a specially designed telescope. Thanks to the knowledge gained, the astronomer was convinced of the correctness of his theory that all the planets revolve around the Sun, and not the Earth, that is, the heliocentric model of the world received evidence.
Much later, in 1761, M. V. Lomonosov, who was also interested in the study of Venus, managed to make an important discovery - it has an atmosphere.
Features of the planet
Let's start with the fact that this planet is one of the closest to us. After all, the distance from Earth to Venus at some moments is only 38 million kilometers - by astronomical standards, very close. True, at other times this figure rises to 261 million.
It makes a revolution around the Sun in 225 Earth days, so the year there is much shorter than ours. Surprisingly, the planet rotates around its axis in as many as 243 days. Thus, a day there lasts almost 20 days longer than a year.
Besides, when describing Venus, one cannot but say that it is the only planet in the solar system that does not rotate clockwise, like the rest, but counterclockwise.
Difficulty of learning
For many years, exploration of Venus has been hampered by primitive equipment. Still, the telescopes used by astronomers 100-200 years ago left much to be desired. Getting new important information with their help was not easy, because most of the time the distance from Earth to Venus is over 100 million kilometers.
But in the twentieth century, spacecraft came to the rescue, which were supposed to help in the study. Alas, the orbital survey was of little help in collecting data on the planet. A very dense veil of clouds almost completely hides the surface of Venus.
Therefore, it was decided to land the device. They became "Venus-4", launched in 1967. After reaching its destination almost three months later, the apparatus was simply crushed by enormous pressure. It is 90 times higher than the earth. Prior to this experiment, no data on such a significant difference with the earth's pressure was known.
The high density of the atmosphere also causes a lot of difficulties for researchers - the equipment in it does not work for long, and in case of extreme decrease it burns out very quickly.
It is worth mentioning separately that acid rains are not uncommon on the planet, easily damaging fragile equipment.
Finally, during the day, the surface temperature rises to 500 degrees, which further complicates the operation of the devices, forcing the design of heavy-duty equipment that can withstand the most adverse operating conditions.
Successful spacecraft launches
The real exploration of Venus began in 1961, when the first artificial object was sent to it. It was developed by Soviet scientists (who made the greatest contribution to the study of our inhospitable neighbor) and sent in 1961. Alas, due to the loss of communication, the aircraft did not complete its task.
Several subsequent projects, both Russian and American, were more successful - the equipment did not decrease, but collected information at a decent distance. Finally, in 1967, Venera-4 was launched, about the sad fatewhich we have already mentioned. However, this failure also taught a lesson.
The tasks of the Venera-5 and Venera-6 vehicles were to descend into the atmosphere and collect data on its composition, with which the equipment did an excellent job. But when developing the next project - "Venus-7" - the engineers took into account all their shortcomings. As a result, the equipment received a huge margin of safety - it could operate at a pressure 180 times higher than that of the earth. In 1970, the device successfully landed on the surface of Venus (for the first time in the history of mankind!), Collected and transmitted important data. True, it worked for only 20 minutes - for some reason the parachute did not fully open, due to which the landing was not as smooth as it should have been.
Launched two years later, the Venera-8 spacecraft did its job perfectly – softly landing, it collected soil samples and transmitted important information to Earth.
The long-awaited shots
The main achievement of the Venera-9 project, launched in 1975, was the first black-and-white photographs of the surface. Finally, humanity has learned what the "neighbor" looks like under a thick layer of clouds.
Launching just a week after the previous project, Venera 10 performed the dual function of serving as an artificial satellite of the planet and also soft-landing the module, which also took some priceless pictures.
Venera-13 and Venera-14, launched in June 1981, also did a great jobwith a mission. Having reached their destination, they transmitted the first color panoramic images and even recorded sound from the surface of another planet. To date, this is the only audio data from Venus in the human collection.
Alas, after the collapse of the USSR, the exploration of Venus by spacecraft practically ceased. Over the past 20 years, only four projects have been successfully completed - by the USA, Europe and Japan. They did not provide any data interesting to the inhabitants.
Conclusion
As you can see, the research of Venus, although it allowed us to collect a lot of valuable data about this planet, still leaves a lot of questions. Perhaps in the future humanity will revive its interest in the near and deep space and will be able to find answers to them. In the meantime, one has to be content with the information that was collected by a powerful power almost half a century ago.
