“Our idea was to use a very special type of radar to map the world’s forests from space. The goal was to understand how forests affect the climate – and how climate change affects forests,” one of the mission proposers, Lars Ulander, Professor of Radar Remote Sensing at Chalmers University of Technology, said in a statement.

Part of a Soviet-era spacecraft is expected to crash back to Earth this week after being stuck in orbit for more than half a century. Kosmos 482 was launched in 1972 as part of a mission to Venus but it never escaped low Earth orbit and separated into four pieces,

A Soviet-era spacecraft meant to land on Venus a half century ago is expected to plunge uncontrolled back to Earth within days.