Venus, the second planet and the hottest planet in the solar system, is also known as Earth's twin or Earth's sister due to it's similar size.
Galileo saw Venus through a telescope and determined it had phases similar to the Moon. This helped support the Copernican view that planets orbited the Sun and not vice versa as previously believed.
Since Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the Moon, and the Sun, it was given the name of the Roman goddess of beauty and love, the ancient Greek’s named it Aphrodite.
When its surface was observed, it was determined that in fact its clouds were made up of sulfuric acid and water vapor, but more importantly, it’s temperature was measured, having an average of 465 degrees Celsius
One Venusian day or rotation is longer than one Venusian year: One Venusian day is about 243 Earth days. It takes Venus 225 days to complete one trip around the sun.
It is the most “visited” planet of the solar system with over 40 spacecraft’s exploring it.
It is theorized that Venus was formed about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust together to form the second planet and it later settled into its current layout.
It is theorized that Venus was formed about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust together to form the second planet and it later settled into its current layout.
Venus has a retrograde rotation, moving in the opposite direction than most planets, only Uranus also does this. They both move from East to West, clockwise. Venus does this rotation once every 243 Earth days, having the slowest rotation out of all the planets in the solar system.
Venus has tilted away from the plane of the ecliptic by 2.7 degrees meaning it is almost completely upside down. Because of this, Venus almost doesn’t experience any seasons spinning nearly upright.
The atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide 96.5% and 3.5% nitrogen with traces of other gases, most notably sulfur dioxide. Venus has thick clouds mainly composed of sulfuric acid droplets, around 75-96%.
This thick atmosphere traps the Sun’s heat, reflecting 75% of the sunlight that falls on them. This atmosphere results in surface temperatures higher than 465 degrees Celsius, 900 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt lead. The mass of this atmosphere is 93 times greater than that of Earth, a pressure equivalent to that at a depth of nearly 1 kilometer or 0.62 miles under the ocean.
Interesting Facts:
Temperatures remain the same on Venus regardless of day and night.
Venus has several times as many volcanoes as Earth, and it has 167 large volcanoes that are over 100 km across.
Russian’s were the first to send an unmanned spacecraft to Venus in 1967. The spacecraft was named Venera 4, many other spacecraft’s with the same name but different numbers were sent after.
Spacecraft’s sent to Venus didn’t last more than an hour due to the crushing atmosphere and harsh conditions.
Venus is the first planet in the Solar System to have its orbit plotted in the sky by ancient civilizations.
Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun within Earth’s Orbit, this makes them inferior planets.
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