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A conjunction means two or more bodies in space passing closely

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together in the sky. So in this case Venus and Mars will appear

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close together - only about a finger’s width apart in the sky. 

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Of course in reality Venus and Mars aren’t actually close together in

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space. Even during this conjunction they will still be many millions

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of miles apart. But from our point of view here on Earth, they will appear

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to be close together. [slate]

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You can spot Venus and Mars if you look low in the western sky

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beginning about half an hour after sunset. They’ll be

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closest together on July 12th and as an added bonus, you’ll be able to 

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see a slim crescent moon close to them too. 

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[slate]

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[slate]

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NASA recently selected two new missions to Venus. These missions are called Veritas

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and Davinci which is named after Renaissance artist Leonardo Davinci.

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Now Veritas is going to orbit Venus to map the surface and measure

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the surface and measure it’s properties in great detail. I’m a member of the Davinci team

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and an exciting thing about our mission is we’re going to drop a probe into Venus

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Venus’s atmosphere. That probe will take about an hour to 

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fall down to the surface. And while it falls, it will take thousands of 

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measurements of the atmosphere and snap high-resolution photographs of the

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surface. All of this is going to help us understand how Venus formed and

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evolved through time and whatever we discover about this mysterious

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and intriguing place, well, we’re bound to be in for some surprises.

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[slate]

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[slate]

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Even though Venus is Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor there is still so much

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we still don’t understand about it. The environment

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of Venus is really, really extreme. This is a planet

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whose surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead. And whose clouds are

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made out of sulfuric acid. In fact, in the lowest part

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of the atmosphere, the air is heated and pressurized to the point 

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that it acts more like a hot fluid than a gas. So 

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it’s really not a nice place that you’d want to visit. But some

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scientists think that Venus may have been more like Earth in the past. 

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There’s clues in the atmosphere and on the surface that’s hinting that Venus

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may once have been more hospitable. So we scientists really

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want to understand if that’s true, and if so what happened

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to change the environment on Venus so drastically.

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[slate]

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[slate]

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If you want to learn more about Venus and the other worlds of our solar system, you can visit 

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solarsystem.nasa.gov.