NASA has two missions to Venus planned: VERITAS and DAVINCI. VERITAS will fly around the planet, analyzing the clouds and taking images. DAVINCI, on the other hand, will fly around the planet for quite some time and then drop a probe to Venus's surface. The spacecraft and the probe will try to detect what gases fill the atmosphere and what elements make up the planet itself, and of course, take pictures.
Sure, DAVINCI is named after the Italian artist, but they had to cheat a little to make the acronym work. It stands for Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging. Despite "gases" not being capitalized, they are very important to the mission.
What happens to the probe on the surface? After all, conditions on the planet are pretty harsh by Earth standards. But remember that a few of the robots we've sent to Mars worked for years after their planned mission, so you never know. Read more about it at Space.com. (via Damn Interesting)
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