A European spacecraft that's been orbiting Venus for the past eight years has finished a month-long maneuver that sent it rocketing through the outer reaches of the hellishly hot planet's atmosphere. The European Space Agency's Venus Express probe wrapped up this "aerobraking" move and entered a new, higher orbit in late July, ESA officials said. It will continue to study Venus for several more months, probably until December, and then, as its fuel runs out, dip back into the planet's thick atmosphere for good. During the aerobraking maneuver, Venus Express studied regions of Venus' atmosphere that had never been studied before, often getting as close as 81 to 84 miles (131 to 135 kilometers) above the planet's surface.
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