from Mariner 2 was received on January 3, 1963, at 07:00 UTC, making the total time from launch to termination of the Mariner 2 mission 129 days. Mariner 2 remains in heliocentric orbit. Results The data produced during the flight consisted of two categories--viz., tracking data and telemetry data. One particularly noteworthy piece of data gathered during the pioneering fly-by was the high temperature of the atmosphere, measured to be . Various properties of the solar wind were also measured for the first time. Scientific observations The microwave radiometer made three scans of Venus in 35 minutes on December 14, 1962, starting at 18:59 UTC. The first scan was made on the dark side, the second was near the terminator, and the third was located on the light side. The scans with the 19 mm band revealed peak temperatures of on the dark side, 595 ± 12 K near the terminator, and 511 ± 14 K on the light side. It was concluded that there is no significant difference in temperature across Venus. However, the results suggest a limb darkening, an effect which presents cooler temperatures near the edge of the planetary disk and higher temperatures near the center. This was evidence for the theory that the Venusian surface was extremely hot and the atmosphere optically thick. The infrared radiometer showed that the 8.4 μm and 10.4 μm radiation temperatures were in agreement with radiation temperatures obtained from Earth-based measurements. There was no systematic difference between the temperatures measured on the light side and dark side of the planet, which was also in agreement with Earth-based measurements. The limb darkening effect that the microwave radiometer detected was also present in the measurements by both channels of the infrared radiometer. The effect was only slightly present in the 10.4 μm channel but was more pronounced in the 8.4 μm channel. The 8.4 μm channel also showed a slight phase effect. The phase effect indicated that if a greenhouse effect existed, heat was transported in an efficient manner from the light side to the dark side of the planet. The 8.4 μm and 10.4 μm showed equal radiation temperatures, indicating that the limb darkening effect would appear to come from a cloud structure rather than the atmosphere. Thus, if the measured temperatures were actually cloud temperatures instead of surface temperatures, then these clouds would have to be quite thick. The magnetometer detected