
In 1982 the Soviet Union landed a probe on the surface of Venus that survived 127 minutes in heat that melts lead and pressure dense enough to crush a submarine — long enough to scan back two panoramas of flat basaltic rock under an orange-tinted sky before the heat finally ended the mission
No spacecraft has survived Venus's surface in four decades—yet a Soviet probe from 1982 still holds the longevity record, outlasting expectations by nearly four times in conditions that liquefy metal.














