Q&A with Rolf de Groot, head of ESA’s robotic exploration office

The European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft has run out of fuel and will burn up in the atmosphere of Venus in January after a successful eight-year mission.

Take a look back at the fiery blastoff of a Russian Proton rocket Monday with the ExoMars 2016 mission to examine the red planet’s atmosphere and test new European entry, descent and landing technologies.

The sharp-eyed science camera on Europe’s Rosetta comet orbiter caught a view of the probe’s fuzzy shadow when controllers guided the spacecraft just a few miles over its subject’s nucleus last month.