Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the sixth largest.

Venus’ orbit of the sun is 224.65 earth days, which means that a year on Venus is 61.5% as long as a year on Earth.

The period of rotation for Venus is 243 days. In other words, Venus takes 243 days to turn once on its axis so that the stars are in the same position in the sky. That seems like a long time, and it is. Especially when you consider that a year on Venus only lasts 224.7 days.

Unlike most other planets in the Solar System, which rotate on their axes in an counter-clockwise direction, Venus rotates clockwise (called “retrograde” rotation)

Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky after the Moon

The angles for Earth, Uranus and Venus are approximately 23°, 97°, and 177° respectively. There are two standard methods of specifying tilt.

Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system. This hostile world is covered in thousands of volcanoes and is encased in a dense layer of toxic clouds, swept along by constant hurricane-force winds.

The atmosphere is made mainly of carbon dioxide and small amounts of nitrogen. The planet is encased in a layer of clouds that are up to 80 kilometres thick, made mostly of sulphuric acid and sulphur dioxide. The atmosphere combined with the extreme temperature and hurricane-force winds, moving at roughly 350 kilometres per hour, make Venus inhospitable. These clouds completely obscure our view of the surface. This dense atmosphere produces a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus’ surface temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus’ surface is actually hotter than Mercury’s despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun.

Venus (Greek: Aphrodite; Babylonian: Ishtar) is the goddess of love and beauty.

The first spacecraft to visit Venus was Mariner 2 in 1962. It was subsequently visited by many others (more than 20 in all so far), including Pioneer Venus and the Soviet Venera 7 the first spacecraft to land on another planet, and Venera 9 which returned the first photographs of the surface. The first orbiter, the US spacecraft Magellan radar map produced detailed maps of Venus’ surface using radar. ESA’s Venus Express launched in November of 2005 and arrived at Venus in April 2006. The Venus Express is conducting atmospheric studies, mapping the Venusian surface temperatures and the plasma environment.

Venus’ rotation is somewhat unusual in that it is both very slow (243 Earth days per Venus day, slightly longer than Venus’ year) and retrograde. In addition, the periods of Venus’ rotation and of its orbit are synchronized such that it always presents the same face toward Earth when the two planets are at their closest approach. Whether this is a resonance effect or merely a coincidence is not known.

Earths sister:
Venus is only slightly smaller than Earth (95% of Earth’s diameter, 80% of Earth’s mass).
Both have few craters indicating relatively young surfaces.
Their densities and chemical compositions are similar.

Hotter than Mercury
There are several layers of clouds many kilometers thick composed of sulphuric acid. These clouds completely obscure our view of the surface. This dense atmosphere produces a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus’ surface temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus’ surface is actually hotter than Mercury’s despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun.