oscillator / Doppler radio small solar batteries - MSB Landing On 1 March 1982, after launch and a four-month cruise to Venus, the descent vehicle separated from the cruise stage and plunged into the Venusian atmosphere. A parachute deployed once the lander entered the Venusian atmosphere. The parachute detached at about above the surface; simple air braking was used for the final descent. Venera 13 landed at around at , just east of the eastern extension of an elevated region known as Phoebe Regio, and about northeast of where Venera 14 would land several days later. The Venera 13 lander was equipped with cameras to photograph the surface and spring-loaded arms to measure the compressibility of regolith. The quartz camera windows were covered by lens caps that popped off after descent. The landing area was composed of bedrock outcrops surrounded by dark, fine-grained regolith. After landing, the lander began to take a panoramic photograph while a mechanical drilling arm obtained surface samples. The samples were deposited in a hermetically sealed chamber, maintained at and a pressure of about 0.05 atmosphere (5 kPa). Sample composition was determined by the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to be in the class of weakly-differentiated melanocratic alkaline gabbroids. Although the lander was designed to function for about 32 minutes, it continued to operate for at least 127 minutes in an environment where the temperature was 457 °C (855 °F) and the pressure was 9.0 MPa (89 standard atmospheres). Data was transmitted by the lander to the satellite, which functioned as a data relay as it flew by Venus. In order to measure surface wind speed, microphones on the probe recorded atmospheric wind noises (the probe also recorded noises associated with the probe's equipment). This was the first recording of sound on another planet. Venera 14 would also make similar recordings. Suggested photographic evidence of life Leonid Ksanfomaliti[:ru] of Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (a contributor to the Venera mission) and Stan Karaszewski of Karas, suggested signs of life in the Venera images in an article published in Solar System Research. According to Ksanfomaliti, certain objects resembled a "disk", a "black flap" and a "scorpion" which "emerge, fluctuate and disappear", referring to their changing location on photographs and traces on the ground. Engineers familiar with the probe have identified the moving "disk" as actually being the two lens caps ejected from the lander. Rather