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Artist's impression of one of the Soviet Union's two Vega balloon probes as it floats in the clouds of Venus. The parent spacecraft, Vega 1 and 2 were launched, respectively, on 15/12/84 and 21/12/84. Vega 1 flew by Venus and released a descent capsule, containing the balloon-bourne probe and a landing module, on 11/6/85, with Vega 2 following suit four days later. Both spacecraft then continued towards their successful encounter with Halley's comet in March 1986. The 3. 4 m diameter balloons carried experiments to study temperature, pressure, lightning, cloud densities and vertical wind speeds. In this image an active cloud detector is emitting an infrared sensing beam. Colour version of R280/007. (KEYSTONE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/NASA/JPL)