... Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau , Germany ; Институт космических исследований . ... In particular, a systematic and long-term survey of the atmosphere was missing, and most aspects of atmospheric behaviour remained puzzling. After the Magellan radar mapping mission ended in 1994, there followed a hiatus of more than a decade in Venus research, until the European Space Agency (ESA) took up the challenge and sent its own spacecraft to our planetary neighbour . ...

... Venus Express: mission results and future plans" . ... Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau , Germany ; . Space Research Institute of Russian Academy of Science (IKI)) . ... Venus Express continues and extends the investigations of earlier missions by providing detailed monitoring of processes and phenomena in the atmosphere and near-space environment of Venus. ... They cover the time of solar minimum, and thus complement Pioneer Venus investigations at solar maximum. ...

Hubble Finds Oxygen Atmosphere On Jupiter's Moon Europa . Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have identified the presence of an extremely tenuous atmosphere of molecular oxygen around Jupiter's second moon, Europa . ... Europa's oxygen atmosphere is so tenuous that its surface pressure is barely one hundred billionth that of the Earth," said Principal Investigator Doyle Hall, of Johns Hopkins. ... The oxygen gas slowly leaks into space and must be replenished continuously. ...