Venus Express, the first mission by the European Space Agency to Earth's nearest neighbor, is set to go into orbit around the hot and hazy planet early Tuesday.

The honeycombed aluminum spacecraft is designed to probe the dense, hot atmosphere of Venus for clues about global warming that may shed light on potential changes on this planet.

"We know the greenhouse effect on Earth is a very interesting topic," said Hakan Svedhem of the European Space Agency,"maybe with Venus, we can better understand how our own atmosphere works."

Scientists hope the mission will help solve the mystery of how the shrouded, churning atmosphere of Venus formed and how it maintains the planet's broiler-like temperatures.

Venus and Earth are roughly the same size and mass, and composed of the same materials, but evolved differently hundreds of millions of years ago.

Venus is covered with a thick mantle of perpetual clouds with a dense atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide laced with sulfuric acid.

The clouds hold in heat from the sun and possible volcanic activity, resulting in a constant surface temperature of 870 degrees Fahrenheit, or 466 degrees centigrade, with crushing atmospheric pressure a hundred times greater than on the Earth's surface.

If successful, the spacecraft will go into a long, elliptical nine-day orbit around the poles of Venus that takes it far out into space. Enditem

(Agencies)