named after the ancient Roman goddess of
beauty Venus is known for its
exceptional brightness in the night sky
but behind this facade is a world of
storms and infernos unlike anywhere else
in the solar system Venus the second
planet from the Sun is very similar to
Earth from a distance but up close it’s
a very different world Venus is about
the same size as Earth just slightly
smaller its structure is also nearly
identical with an iron core a hot mantle
and a rocky crust the crust of Venus
however is dotted with thousands of
volcanoes including Maxwell Montes a
volcano almost as tall as Mount Everest
Venus also has a thick layered
atmosphere it’s full of clouds that rain
sulfuric acid and whip around the planet
at speeds up to 224 miles per hour
faster than some category 5 hurricanes
the atmosphere is so thick that it
creates a surface pressure similar to
what it would be about half a mile deep
in the Earth’s oceans this pressure is
heavy enough at a human standing on
Venus’s surface would be crushed the
atmosphere is made of greenhouse gases
primarily carbon dioxide which create an
extreme case of global warming they trap
the sun’s heat causing surface
temperatures to rise over eight hundred
and eighty degrees Fahrenheit making
Venus the hottest planet in the solar
system Venus is so inhospitable neither
humans nor spacecraft are able to
survive the planet’s surface but some
scientists speculate that Venus wasn’t
always so unwelcoming from roughly 2.9
billion to 715 million years ago global
temperatures on Venus may have been just
a few degrees cooler than Earth’s are
today and scientists theorize that the
surface may have contained shallow
oceans that could have held enough water
to support life today life may still
exist in Venus’s atmosphere about 30
miles up in Venus’s clouds where the
temperature and surface pressure are
similar to those on the surface of earth
scientists have observed strange dark
streaks that appear to be absorbing
ultraviolet radiation a phenomenon that
could be evidence of microbial life life
may struggle to survive in the
atmosphere of Venus but it is this
unforgiving environment that’s made
Venus an icon of beauty it reflects 70%
of all the sunlight that reaches the
planet which is why Venus shines more
brightly than any other planet or star
while more than 40 unmanned spacecraft
have visited this infernal world Venus
so illuminated in the darkness of space still has much to reveal
beauty Venus is known for its
exceptional brightness in the night sky
but behind this facade is a world of
storms and infernos unlike anywhere else
in the solar system Venus the second
planet from the Sun is very similar to
Earth from a distance but up close it’s
a very different world Venus is about
the same size as Earth just slightly
smaller its structure is also nearly
identical with an iron core a hot mantle
and a rocky crust the crust of Venus
however is dotted with thousands of
volcanoes including Maxwell Montes a
volcano almost as tall as Mount Everest
Venus also has a thick layered
atmosphere it’s full of clouds that rain
sulfuric acid and whip around the planet
at speeds up to 224 miles per hour
faster than some category 5 hurricanes
the atmosphere is so thick that it
creates a surface pressure similar to
what it would be about half a mile deep
in the Earth’s oceans this pressure is
heavy enough at a human standing on
Venus’s surface would be crushed the
atmosphere is made of greenhouse gases
primarily carbon dioxide which create an
extreme case of global warming they trap
the sun’s heat causing surface
temperatures to rise over eight hundred
and eighty degrees Fahrenheit making
Venus the hottest planet in the solar
system Venus is so inhospitable neither
humans nor spacecraft are able to
survive the planet’s surface but some
scientists speculate that Venus wasn’t
always so unwelcoming from roughly 2.9
billion to 715 million years ago global
temperatures on Venus may have been just
a few degrees cooler than Earth’s are
today and scientists theorize that the
surface may have contained shallow
oceans that could have held enough water
to support life today life may still
exist in Venus’s atmosphere about 30
miles up in Venus’s clouds where the
temperature and surface pressure are
similar to those on the surface of earth
scientists have observed strange dark
streaks that appear to be absorbing
ultraviolet radiation a phenomenon that
could be evidence of microbial life life
may struggle to survive in the
atmosphere of Venus but it is this
unforgiving environment that’s made
Venus an icon of beauty it reflects 70%
of all the sunlight that reaches the
planet which is why Venus shines more
brightly than any other planet or star
while more than 40 unmanned spacecraft
have visited this infernal world Venus
so illuminated in the darkness of space still has much to reveal
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