The week's good news: June 3, 2021

It wasn't all bad!

Venus.
(Image credit: SDO/NASA via Getty Images)

1. NASA to send 2 missions to Venus

It's Venus' time to shine. On Wednesday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that the space agency will send two missions to the planet: One to study its atmosphere and another to map its topography, The Washington Post reports. Both missions will study "how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface," Nelson said, adding, "We hope these missions will further our understanding of how Earth evolved and why it's habitable when others in our solar system are not." NASA scientist Tom Wagner told the Post it is "astounding how little we know about Venus, but the combined results of these missions will tell us about the planet from the clouds in its sky through the volcanoes in its surface all the way down to its very core. It will be as if we rediscovered the planet." It's been more than 30 years since NASA last sent a probe to Venus.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.