Venus is Earth's near twin in mass and radius, yet its atmosphere, mostly composed of carbon dioxide, has a surface temperature and pressure far higher than those of the Earth. This paper discusses the first year of observations by Venus Express, which bring into focus the evolutionary paths by which the climates of two similar planets diverged from common beginnings to such extremes.
- Håkan Svedhem
- Dmitry V. Titov
- Olivier Witasse
