http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/was-venus-once-good-home-life-nasa-missions-aim-find-out

The DAVINCI+ probe falls toward Venus, sampling the atmosphere as it goes, in an artist’s concept.

When NASA announced last week it would spend $1 billion developing two new missions to Venus—the agency’s first visits in decades to Earth’s hothouse twin—planetary scientists were elated, and not just because a long wait had ended. A dramatic shift in thinking about the planet over the past few years has made a visit even more enticing. Venus was once thought to have boiled off all its water almost as soon as it was born 4.5 billion years ago, turning into the parched, hostile world of today. But many scientists now think Venus might have kept expansive oceans for billions of years—a nearly perfect setting for life.