Axios

The future of a major NASA mission to explore Venus hangs in the balance, threatening a promised renaissance for understanding the planet.

Why it matters: Scientists are eager to send new missions to Venus in order to answer major questions they still have about the planet.

President Biden will protect some 514,000 acres of public land on Tuesday by designating two new national monuments: the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and the Castner Range National Monument in Texas.

Why it matters: Along with the new monuments, Biden is set to announce at a White House summit several other conservation efforts, including protecting U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands.

A stark new U.N. climate change report warns that humanity stands at the precipice of a more dangerous world, but says it has the tools needed to pull back from the brink.

Driving the news: The final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) sixth assessment report amounts to scientists's final warning issued when the world still has a chance to limit global warming's severity to the Paris Agreement's targets.