Is Venus ready for its close-up?

NASA has announced five projects under consideration for its next space mission, and the second planet from the sun plays a role in two of them.

One of the proposals involves dropping a spacecraft, dubbed DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging), through Venus' atmosphere to study its composition. Another proposal would send a craft to map the surface of the planet in detail, to see how similar Venus surface is to Earth's and whether Venus was ever capable of habitation.

The other three projects would focus on the study of asteroids and near-earth objects -- a term for anything floating in orbit around our planet, including meteoroids and old satellites.