Venera 9
On October 20th in 1975, Venera 9, the first spacecraft to orbit Venus was inserted into Venus’ orbit. Its lander dropped down two days later. The found itself under 90 atmospheres of pressure at 480°C, in an atmosphere rich in toxic gasses. Venus suddenly started looking less like the goddess of love and more like the incarnation of hell. One picture was sent back, and the lander operated for 53 minutes before it failed due to the extreme environment. This was the first picture ever taken from the surface of another planet.
Source: Sagan, C. Cosmos. (Ballantine Books, 1985).
Right: Replica of Venera 9 space probe on display at the K. E. Tsiolkovsky Museum of the History of Cosmonautics
Left: Public Domain.
Right: image by Stolbovsky under CC BY 4.0
Back to archive
Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!