Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system.

The sun's hottest planet is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty and is the only solar system planet named after a woman. Different cultures have different names for certain places.

It is possible that Venus was named after the most beautiful deity of the Roman and Greek pantheons. Aphrodite was the name of Venus in ancient Greek city states.

Venus facts.

There are 243 Earth days.

The length of the year is over 200 Earth days.

There is a distance from the sun to the rest of the world.

The number of moons is zero.

The surface temperature is 900F.

The diameter is 7,520 miles.

The atmospheric composition is mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

Venus was thought to be two different stars, the evening one and the morning one, in ancient times. They were both referred to as "Vesper and Lucifer" in Christian Latin. Before Satan's fall, he was known as the "light-bringer" or "Lucid".

Venus in the space age was a very bad place. It's difficult to observe Venus from up close because it doesn't last long on its surface.

What is a morning star and what is an evening star.

Venus color

Venus is visible from the ground. Venus is a bright white object in the night sky. According to NASA, its maximum magnitude is close to -5 The lower an object's magnitude, the brighter it looks to the eye.

The color of Venus is not as red as one would find on Mars, according to NASA. NASA and others have sent back pictures from Venus that show a world with colors of red, brown and yellow. According to Cornell University, the color of Venus is due to the number of volcanic rocks on the planet.

The color of Venus can't be seen from the ground due to the clouds. If a satellite can see through the clouds, pictures of Venus can be seen. Humans would need to descend to survive the high temperatures and high pressures present down there. We will be using robotic explorers to look at Venus.

The path that the other planets, the sun and the moon take in our solar system is the same one that Venus takes. The orientation of our solar system can be traced back to how our solar system came to be. Venus being so close to other worlds means that conjunctions are common in the sky. Venus will usually line up with the moon and other planets more often than not.

astronomical diagram showing the moon, venus and other bright stars

An illustration of the night sky on Aug. 25, 2022 showing Venus near the moon. (Image credit: Starry Night Software)
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Venus: Size, composition and temperature

Venus and Earth have the same size, mass, density, composition and gravity. Our home planet is larger than Venus with a mass of 80%.

Venus is a rocky planet. A metallic iron core makes up the interior of Venus, which is 2,400 miles wide. The molten rocky mantle of Venus is over a thousand miles long. The average thickness of Venus' crust is 10 to 20 km.

It's not easy to explain why Venus is the hottest planet in the sun. Venus has a dense atmosphere that traps heat in a way that makes it hotter than the sun. After landing on the planet, spacecraft were destroyed.

The atmosphere of Venus is mostly carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid and only trace amounts of water. The surface pressure of Venus is over 90 times that of Earth, due to the fact that the atmosphere is heavier.

Graphic comparing Earth and Venus in terms of distance from the sun, radius, average surface temperature and atmospheric composition.

Venus is sometimes referred to as Earth's twin, but the pair have little in common.  (Image credit: Future)
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Venus is very dry. Ultra violet rays from the sun kept Venus in a molten state. The hot air created by its ozone-filled atmosphere would cause the water on its surface to boil.

Roughly two-thirds of the Venusian surface is covered by flat, smooth plains that are marred by thousands of volcanoes, some of which are still active today.

One third of the Venusian surface is mountainous. The highest feature on the planet is the 540 mile (870 km) long Maxwell mountain range.

Venus has a number of surface features that are unique to Earth. Venus has ring-like structures that range from 95 to 1,300 miles. The hot material under the planet's crust is believed to have formed these. Tesserae are raised areas in which ridges and valleys have formed.

Venus is almost unique in our solar system because it has no moons. Mercury is the only planet that doesn't have moons. Scientists don't know why some planets have moons and some don't, but they can say that each planet has a unique and complex history and that may contribute to how moons formed.

What is Venus' orbit like?

It takes 243 Earth days for Venus to spin on its axis. The thick atmosphere of Venus may be the reason why its day is longer than its year. The metal core can't generate a magnetic field like Earth's because of its sluggish spin. Venus' magnetic field is fifteen times larger than Earth's.

The parameters of Venus.

There is a new tab on NASA's website.

There is an average distance from the sun.

The closest approach to the sun is called perihelion.

The furthest distance from the sun is 67,692,000 miles.

Venus rotates on its axis in a different way than most planets. The sun will appear to rise in the west on Venus. The sun sets in the west while it rises in the east.

The time it takes to travel around the sun is called the Venusian year. It would mean that days on Venus would be longer. The time from one sunrise to the next is only about 115 Earth days. The last time Venus transited in front of the sun was in 2012 and it will happen again in 2117

Venus' climate

Artist's illustration showing molten lava lakes in the foreground and a bright lightning strikes appearing from a hazy yellow sky.

Venus' lightning forms within clouds of sulfuric acid and is unique in the solar system. (Image credit: Future/Tobias Roetsch)
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Every four Earth days, the top layer of Venus' clouds zip around the planet, propelled by Hurricane-force winds. One of the biggest mysteries of Venus is the super rotation of the planet's atmosphere.

When winds blow over geological features, they cause rises and falls in the layers of air, known as gravity waves. The winds at the planet's surface are not as strong as they could be.

The upper clouds of Venus have unusual stripes that absorb light in the blue and ultraviolet wavelength. Half of the total solar energy is absorbed by these. They seem to be involved in keeping Venus as horrible as possible. Many things need to be ruled out before scientists can conclude that it could be life.

There are some weird facts about Venus.

Evidence of lightning on the planet, which formed within clouds of sulfuric acid, was found by the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission. There is only one lightning in the solar system. It is of particular interest to scientists because it is possible that electrical discharges from lightning could help form the molecule needed to jumpstart life.

Venus exploration

Artist's illustration showing the Venus orbiter with solar arrays stretched out either side of the craft heading towards Venus. Earth is seen to the left of Venus in this image.

ESA's next Venus orbiter was announced on June 12, 2021. ESA hopes to launch EnVision to Venus in the early 2030s. (Image credit: NASA / JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / Damia Bouic / VR2Planets)
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More than 20 missions have been deployed to Venus by the United States, Soviet Union, European Space Agency and Japan. The first planet to be observed by a passing vehicle was Venus in 1962. The first craft to land on a planet other than Earth was the Soviet Union's Venera 7. The first photographs were taken on the Venusian surface. Maps of 98% of the planet's surface were created by NASA's first Venusian orbiter.

The European Space Agency's Venus Express was in the vicinity of Venus for eight years and was able to confirm the presence of lightning there. controllers used a month long maneuver to plunge the satellite into the outer layers of the planet's atmosphere. After it survived the journey, Venus Express went into a higher altitude. The spaceship burned up in the atmosphere of Venus after running out of fuel.

In pictures, the Soviet Union's Venus missions.

The main engine on Japan's Akatsuki mission failed during a critical burn, sending the craft hurtling into the sky. The Japanese team performed a burn to correct the course of the spaceship. Akatsuki was put into space in November of 2015. Akatsuki spotted a big "gravity wave" in Venus. The spacecraft is still looking for active volcanoes on Venus.

NASA and the Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute have been talking about collaborating on a mission that would include a lander and possibly a solar-powered vehicle.

"We want this mission to answer and what components of a mission would best answer those questions, so we're at the pen-and-paper stage where we're considering what science questions, and what we want this mission to answer and what components of a mission would best answer those Who knows if we could meet the earliest possible launch date.

NASA has recently funded several extremely early-stage mission concepts that could look at Venus in the future. The balloon that would check out Venus from low altitudes is part of the "steampunk" rover that uses old-school levers instead of electronics. Some NASA researchers are looking into the possibility of using airships to explore the more humid parts of Venus' atmosphere.

Two new missions to Venus will be launched by the year 2030.

The agency announced on June 2, 2021, that they will be sending two missions to Venus in the next round of Discovery.

DAVINCI will study how the planet's atmosphere changes over time. Radar will be used to map the planet's surface.

The next Venus orbiter was announced by the European Space Agency. The director of science at the European Space Agency said in a statement that a new era in the exploration of our closest, yet wildly different, Solar System neighbour awaits us. With the recently announced NASA-led Venus missions, we will have an extremely comprehensive science program at this enigmatic planet. The mission to Venus is being planned by the European Space Agency.

Private explorers are looking at Venus. The company plans to send a probe to Venus in 2020. The paper states that the spacecraft has a 2-pound instrument on board and is designed to survive five minutes in the clouds of Venus. The search for life on Venus got a boost from a new study.

Is there life on Venus?

While destinations in our solar system like the moons Enceladus or Titan are currently the best places to look for signs of extraterrestrial life.

A breakthrough scientific discovery in 2020 had scientists talking about the possibility of life in the atmosphere of Venus.

Scientists think that Venus could have been a good place to live billions of years ago. It has undergone a drastic greenhouse effect that has resulted in Venus' current iteration with hot surface temperatures and an atmosphere that ishellish.

Scientists discovered a strange chemical in the planet's clouds that may be a sign of life.

The compound phosphine has been seen on Earth and on Jupiter. It could appear as it does on Earth for a short period of time in the planet's atmosphere according to scientists.

The search for life has something to do with the phosphine discovery.

The compound phosphine is found in a number of different ways, including rat poison, and some scientists believe that it is produced by microbes on Earth.

It has caused some to suspect that the phosphine in Venus' atmosphere is caused byMicrobes. Since the discovery, there have been follow-up analyses that have questioned whether or not the compound is created by microbes.

Scientists searched for evidence of poop in a study but found nothing. The premise of life is hard to prove without more compelling evidence.

animation of spacecraft over venus. the sun rises over venus and reflects off the solar panels of the spacecraft

Europe's EnVision mission to Venus will aerobrake for two years to get into its target science orbit. (Image credit: ESA)
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Terraforming Venus

There are scenarios in science fiction where astronauts terraform a planet. It's not clear how this could happen and whether it's doable. Scientists and fans of science fiction talk about terraforming Mars because the Red Planet is more suitable for humans than Venus.

Terraforming any planet is likely to bring up ethical questions about how to protect any life that may be there and how to preserve any information that life left behind. Venus is not hospitable to life as we know it.

If we want to terraform Venus, we would need an ocean and weathering process, according to a proposal from 2020. We might be able to remove dust from the air and get carbon dioxide to condense onto the surface if we had enough water. It is possible to throw a lot of icy objects, like comets, into the atmosphere of Venus, but how to do that is a mystery.

The idea of sending trillions of tons of hydrogen from gas giant planets like Jupiter was proposed in 1991. He said that the hydrogen would turn carbon dioxide into water. The side effect of collecting solar energy for potential human or robotic use is that Venus needs to be cooled down from the sun.

artist picture of solar orbiter spacecraft flying over Venus' hazy pale yellow atmosphere.

The sun-observing Solar Orbiter spacecraft makes regular flybys at Venus, taking measurements of the planet's magnetic field as a side project. (Image credit: ESA)
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Venus quiz

The Venus quiz is a short one.

Additional resources

You can read about the possibility of life on Venus in this article.

Bibliography

The author is Jonathan O'Callaghan. Is it possible to live on Venus? The scientists are looking for the truth. Nature 586.7828 was published in 2020

James W. Head, Basilevsky, and Alexander T. There is a report on progress in physics 66.10

Kane, Stephen R. The journal describes Venus as a lab for exoplanetary science.

The overview of Venus is in the new tab.