Venus
Also known as ♀, Planet Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. Similar in size and mass to Earth, Venus has no liquid water, and its atmosphere is far thicker and denser than that of any other rocky body in the Solar System. The atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and has a thick cloud layer of sulfuric acid that spans the whole planet. At the mean surface level, the atmosphere reaches a temperature of and a pressure 92 times greater than Earth's at sea level, turning the lowest layer of the atmosphere into a supercritical fluid. From Earth, Venus is visible as a star-like point of light, appearing brig
AI overview
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is similar in size and mass to Earth, but has no liquid water and an extremely thick atmosphere made mostly of carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid. It matters because studying Venus helps us understand how planetary atmospheres work and how dramatically different conditions can be on worlds similar in size to our own, with surface temperatures and pressures far more extreme than anything on Earth.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Planet.name
- Venus
- Planet.image
- Venus 2 Approach Image.jpg
- Planet.symbol
- 24px|♀|class=skin-invert
- Planet.caption
- Image of Venus, as captured by MESSENGER. In natural color Venus is a featureless sphere. A cloud layer permanently obscures the surface.
- Planet.background
- LightSalmon
- Planet.epoch
- J2000
- Planet.eccentricity
- 0.006772
- Planet.synodic_period
- 583.92 days
- Planet.avg_speed
- 35.02km/s
- Planet.asc_node
- 76.680°
- Planet.arg_peri
- 54.884°
- Planet.mean_anomaly
- 50.115°
Article
38 sectionsContents
- Physical characteristics
- Natural history
- Formation
- Future
- Geography
- Volcanism
- Craters
- Internal structure
- Magnetic field and core
- Atmosphere and climate
- Orbit and rotation
- Orbit in respect to Earth
- Observability
- Phases
- Daylight apparitions
- Transits
- Ashen light
- Observation and exploration history
- Early observation
- Venus and early modern astronomy
- Early 20th century advances
- First missions to Venus
- Renewed exploration
- Active and planned missions
- Objectives
- Crewed mission concepts
- Possible atmospheric habitation
- Possibility of life
- Planetary protection
- In culture
- Modern culture
- Symbols
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Further reading
- External links
- Cartographic resources
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. Similar in size and mass to Earth, Venus has no liquid water, and its atmosphere is far thicker and denser than that of any other rocky body in the Solar System. The atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and has a thick cloud layer of sulfuric acid that spans the whole planet. At the mean surface level, the atmosphere reaches a temperature of and a pressure 92 times greater than Earth's at sea level, turning the lowest layer of the atmosphere into a supercritical fluid. From Earth, Venus is visible as a star-like point of light, appearing brighter than any other natural point of light in the sky, and as an inferior planet it is always relatively close to the Sun, as either the brightest "morning star" or "evening star".
The orbits of Venus and Earth make the two planets approach each other in synodic periods of 1.6 years. In the course of this, Venus comes closer to Earth than any other planet. In interplanetary spaceflight from Earth, Venus is frequently used as a waypoint for gravity assists, offering a faster and more economical route. Venus has no moons and a very slow retrograde rotation about its axis, a result of competing forces of solar tidal locking and differential heating of Venus's massive atmosphere. As a result, a Venusian day is 116.75 Earth days long, about half a Venusian solar year, which is 224.7 Earth days long.