Venus is our closest Planetary Neighbor, just 42 million Kilometers (26 million Miles) at the closest point. Its mean distance from the Sun is 108,200,000 kilometers, its period of revolution is 225 days. It has a weak magnetic field and no satellites. Its diameter is 12,102 kilometers (95% of Earth), its mass is 82% of Earth and its density is 5.2. (Earth's is 5.5). It is the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon and has an albedo of 0.76. Thus it was named after the Roman Goddess of Beauty. It has an extremely dense atmosphere, composed 96% of Carbon Dioxide, slightly less than 4% of Nitrogen and traces of Argon, Oxygen, and Water Vapor. The atmospheric pressure is 90 atm (1323 pounds per square inch) and the temperature is 750 K (480 C) (900 F). This is because of the "greenhouse effect" caused by the large amount of Carbon Dioxide. Thick Sulfur Dioxide Clouds cover the planet, and so the surface is not visible from Earth. The clouds occur in four layers beginning at 31 km above the surface and extending another 37 km. The top layers contain large amount of yellowish sulfur dust giving it a yellow or yellow orange color. The temperature at the top of the atmosphere is 220 K.
Venus resembles Earth in many ways. They have similar average density, mass, size, and surface gravity.
The Magellan spacecraft's radar images reveal Venus' surface hot, black rock with about 1000 craters larger than a few kilometers. It did not detect any active volcanos.
Some strange facts about Venus
1. Its rotation is retrograde (That is it rotates from East to West unlike Earth and most planets which rotate West to East as viewed from the North Pole) It was possibly struck by a large object which stopped its rotation and produced a slow rotation in the opposite direction.
2. It takes 243 days for the planet to rotate but the atmosphere rotates in four days.
For Statistics about Venus, images and description, Click below
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|