We may soon be on our way to Venus. A mission to our neighbouring planet is one of three finalists in the running to be the European Space Agency’s (ESA) next mission in its Cosmic Vision programme.

The other two contenders are a space telescope that will hunt for bursts of energy from the early universe, and a space observatory that can peer through interstellar dust to watch stars being born. These three missions were selected out of 25 proposals for further study over the next …