Data show Venus could be Earth's twin

PARIS, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- European scientists say new data and images of Venus show the planet may once have been more Earth-like.

The new information comes from the European Space Agency's Venus Express, which is helping shed light on Earth's cloud-covered neighbor. At a news conference in Paris this week, one researcher with the ESA even described Venus as "Earth's twin, separated at birth."

ESA said Venus has been a mystery for centuries because of the curtain of clouds that obscures the view of its surface.

"The planet has approximately the same mass as the Earth yet it is a hellish place where surface temperatures are over 400 degrees Celsius and the surface pressure is 100 times that on Earth," ESA said Thursday in a release. "The key to understanding Venus lies in its atmosphere, which is much thicker than Earth's."

Scientist Dmitri Titov said the spacecraft has revealed the structure and movements of the atmosphere from its upper reaches to just above the surface, and obtained the best global map to date of atmospheric temperatures.