Europe launches probe to Venus

A European-built spacecraft successfully blasted off Wednesday for Venus on a five-month mission to probe the planet's greenhouse effect.
The remote-operated probe lifted off from the Baikonur, Kazakhstan on board a Soyuz rocket and made contact with mission control.
"The mission is an outstanding success," Gaele Winters, a director at the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, told reporters. "We had a perfect launch. The instruments are switched on, the solar panels are deployed, everything is working."
The probe, called Venus Express, is expected to reach the planet in mid-April. It cost 220 million euros.
Scientists hope the mission will help them to understand why Venus evolved so differently than Earth, given the two planets have similar sizes, masses and composition.
Venus lacks a magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind, leading temperatures to peak at 740 K, hot enough to melt lead.
The Venusian atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide, which traps solar radiation in the most powerful greenhouse effect known in the solar system, according to ESA's website.
The probe's instruments will also study the hurricane force winds at high altitudes and measure temperatures.
Scientists also want to learn if the volcanoes on Venus are active.
The space agency planned to launch the craft on Oct. 26. The launch was delayed to allow technicians to clear contamination on the covering of the probe's Russian-made Soyuz-Fregat launcher.
NASA made the last mission to Venus in the early 1990s, mapping the planet's surface