Venus probe Akatsuki unveiled

Japan's space agency has unveiled its Venus explorer vehicle, ahead of a launch scheduled for the middle of next year.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency showed the media the spacecraft nicknamed "Akatsuki", or dawn in English, on Friday.

The agency spent about 15 billion yen, or 170 million dollars, to develop the probe. The small spacecraft measures 2 meters tall by 1.4 meters wide, and weighs 500 kilograms.

Akatsuki will be launched in June 2010 on Japan's H2A rocket. It will take about 2 years to reach Venus, where it will make observations from orbit.

The probe will use 5 separate instruments to carry out observations of the atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide, and the temperature distribution on the planet's surface.

Venus, known as the morning star, is Earth's neighboring planet. As it has a stable atmosphere and a diameter and gravity almost the same as those of Earth, the two are often called "twin planets."

The mission to study the origins of Venus will be Japan's first.

Project Manager Masato Nakamura says Earth and Venus have many aspects in common. He says the probe will look for clues about what dictated the existence or nonexistence of life on the two planets.