A few amazing pictures of Venus and planet’s surface taken by Soviet missions Venera-9, Venera-10, Venera-13 & Venera-14.

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• Diameter: 12,100 km. Venus is about 1040km smaller in diameter than Earth
• Temperature: Ranges from 900F+/- 50F (about 500°C +/- 32°C) at the surface
• Mean Distance from the Sun: 108.21 million km
• Distance from Earth: At its closest, Venus is 41,840,000 km away
• Atmosphere: Carbon dioxide (95%), nitrogen, sulfuric acid, and traces of other elements
• Surface: A rocky, dusty, waterless expanse of mountains, canyons, and plains, with a 200-mile river of hardened lava
• Density 5.24 g/cm3 (0.95 of Earth’s)
• Mass of Venus is less than Earth; Venus has 0.815 of Earth’s mass
• The gravity on Venus (8.87 m/s2) is nearly the same as it is on Earth (9.81 m/s2)
• Rotation of its axis: 243 Earth days (1 Venusian Day)
• Rotation around the Sun: 225 Earth days
• Venus has no moons
• Magnetic Field: No
• Venus contain two large highland areas — Ishtar Terra, which is about the size of Australia, in the north polar region; and Aphrodite Terra, which is about the size of South America, across the equator and extending for almost 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles). Maxwell Montes, which is at the eastern edge of Ishtar Terra, is the highest mountain on Planet Venus and is comparable to Mount Everest on Earth.
• People used to think Venus was tropical: Until the Americans and Soviets sent their first spacecraft to study Venus up close, nobody really knew what was down under the planet’s thick clouds. Science fiction writers dreamed up lush tropical jungles. The hellish temperatures and dense atmospheres surprised everyone.

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Venus, the jewel of the sky, was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Astronomers refer to Venus as Earth’s sister planet. Both planets are similar in size, mass, density, composition and gravity. These were the similarities. But unlike Earth, Venus has no oceans and is covered by a thick, rapidly spinning atmosphere composed primarily of carbon dioxide with almost no water vapor. The clouds at Venus are composed of sulfuric acid droplets. This thick atmosphere creates a scorched world with temperatures hot enough to melt lead and the atmospheric pressure which is 92 times that of the Earth’s at sea-level.

Temperature on Venus

Venus is baked with a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F). This high temperature is mainly due to a runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavy atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere, this way heat is radiated in and is trapped by the dense atmosphere and is not allowed to escape into space. Because of the green house effect planet Venus is hotter than Mercury.

Venus Atmosphere

The atmosphere of Venus consists primarily of carbon dioxide, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets. Some trace amounts of water have also been discovered in the atmosphere. This thick atmosphere traps the Sun’s heat and hence results in very high surface temperatures. Sulfur compounds are plentiful in Venus’ clouds. The corrosive chemistry and dense moving atmosphere results in significant surface weathering and erosion.#1

Transits of Venus

Just like Mercury, Venus can be seen periodically passing across the face of the Sun. These “transits” of Venus take place in pairs with over a century separating each pair. As Venus’s orbit is significantly larger than Mercury’s orbit, transits of Venus are much rarer. In fact, only six such events have taken place ever since the invention of the telescope (1631,1639, 1761,1769, 1874 and 1882). Transits of Venus are only probable during early December and June when Venus’s orbital nodes pass across the Sun. Transits of Venus show a clear pattern of recurrence at intervals of 8, 121.5, 8 and 105.5 years.

Venus is Dry

The Earth has a shielding layer known as the Ozone Layer to prevent us from Sun’s ultraviolet rays. Venus does not have an ozone layer to block the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Therefore UV rays find its way directly into Venus’ atmosphere. For over many billions of years this radiation has gradually broken down water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. Therefore, there is now very little water left on Venus.

From West to East

The year or orbital period on Venus is almost 225 Earth days long, whereas the planet’s rotation period is 243 Earth days, making a Venus day about 117 Earth days long. In addition to this the Planet Venus rotates in the opposite direction as almost all the other planets. Because of this instead of the Sun rising in the east and setting in the west, the Sun on Venus would appear to rise in the west and set in the east.

As Venus moves ahead in its solar orbit and slowly rotating “backwards” on its axis, the top level of cloud layers zooms around the planet every four Earth days, driven by hurricane-force winds which travel at about 360 kilometers per hour. The wind speeds in the clouds reduce with cloud height, and winds at the surface are likely to be just a few kilometers per hour. Scientists are still investigating how this atmospheric “super-rotation” forms and how it is maintained.

Visibility of Venus

Venus appears to be the brightest planet in the sky because of its proximity to Earth and the way its clouds reflect sunlight. Even though we cannot generally see through Venus’ thick atmosphere, NASA’s Magellan mission to Venus in the early 1990s used radar to image 98 percent of the surface, and the Galileo spacecraft used infrared mapping to observe mid-level cloud structure as it passed by Venus in 1990 on the way to Jupiter. Four of the most successful missions in enlightening the Venusian surface are NASA’s Pioneer Venus mission (1978), the Soviet Union’s Venera 15 and 16 missions (1983-1984), and NASA’s Magellan radar mapping mission (1990-1994).

Topography of Venus

Geologically speaking the surface of Planet Venus is relatively young. It appears to have been fully resurfaced 300 to 500 million years ago. Scientists are researching on how and why this happened. The topography of Venus consists of vast plains which are covered by lava flows and mountain or highland regions deformed by geological activity. Venus has a small number of mountainous areas along with widespread flat areas. There are craters and proof that the surface long ago moved, much like the surface of the Earth moves at present. However unlike the Earth’s surface, there is no proof that Venus has a tectonic plate system.

Venus has many volcanoes. However unlike the volcanoes on Earth which can at times explode in an explosive manner, the volcanoes on Venus are supposed to explode in a less violent way. In reality, it is supposed that they don’t explode at all, but it is thought that the lava just slowly flows out onto the surface.#2

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[image] – www.nasa.org

The planet Venus is nearest neighbor of Earth. It took the name from the Greek God named Venus and was also called Evening Star. The planet Venus can be observed after sunset and before sunrise. Venus is the solar system’s 6th largest planet and is closer to the sun than the Earth. It is the only planet that orbits clockwise.

Venus is called Shukra in the ancient Hindu astrology. It was observed by the Babylonians in the early 1600BC and was called planet Ishtar, the goddess of love and womanhood.

Venus was known as the wandering star long before the invention of telescope. The westerners had thought Venus to be two different planets in the morning and late afternoon. Phythagoras was the first to find out in the 6th century that the planet was one. He thought that Venus orbited around Earth. Galileo noticed in 17th century that Venus had traits like the moon.

A Russian genius named Mikhail Lomonosov had first discovered the atmosphere of Venus in 1761. Further observations were made by Johann Schroter an1790 and figured out that Venus appeared like a crescent. Chester Smith Lyman was the first to discover the ring around dark side of the planet. The atmosphere of Venus is very dense which causes problem for scientists who wanted to know its rotation period. However, Johan Schroter and Giovanni Cassini thought that Venus had a rotation period of 24 hours.

Venus has some traits which are similar with Earth. Venus contains silicon rocks present on its surface just like Earth. The size and make up is similar to Earth. Moreover, Venus and Earth has the same core that is made up of compact iron deposits and the center of Venus is very similar to that of Earth. However, its atmosphere is very dense for hosting life. Venus is filled with sulfuric acid clouds and the severe heat dries up all bodies of water. Its surface is a lot hotter than Mercury’s. Majority of Venus surface features are inspired from women.

There have been a number of space probe missions to Venus. The first one was the Russian Venera 1. However it lost contact with Earth after seven days. The first successful spacecraft that came close to Venus was America’s Mariner 2 in 1962. There have been over 20 spacecraft visits to Venus.

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