Venus

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Note: You can click on each photograph below to view a larger version. Venus, the second planet from the Sun, is sufficiently similar to Earth that it was long hoped it might prove habitable, or even inhabited. RIGHT: Venus photographed in ultraviolet light by NASA's Pioneer Venus probe, showing details of the clouds. In normal light, it appears as a featureless white ball. It turns out that Venus is totally uninhabitable. It has an extremely dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, with an atmospheric pressure 92 times that of Earth at the surface, which has created a runaway greenhouse effect. At ground level, the temperature is around 464C. There is virtually no wind at the surface, although there are storms and clouds of sulphuric acid in the upper atmosphere, and the light is a sulphurous orange-red. ABOVE: The desolate rocky surface, as seen by the Soviet Venera 13 lander in 1982. The objects at the bottom of the pictures are part of the spacecraft, and the apparent curvature of the ground is due to the wide-angle lens used. In legend, Venus, also known as Aphrodite, was the goddess of love. Therefore when Venus was mapped from orbit by the American Pioneer and Magellan probes, which scanned the surface with radar, it was decided that the newly discovered features would be named after distinquished women. These include mountains, ridges, craters, plateaus, and features that appear to be extinct volcanoes. The geological evidence is that Venus had considerable volcanic activity in its past. It does not have any moons. Venus is the brightest thing in the sky after the Sun and moon. This is partly because Venus is the closest planet to us, but mainly because the clouds are so reflective. As Venus moves around its orbit, we sometimes see it fully illuminated by the Sun, and sometimes dark, when the Sun is behind it. In between, it shows a full range of phases, like the moon. The phases can be easily followed with binoculars, and some people can even see them with the naked eye. A few observers have claimed to see faint markings in the clouds, but it is unclear whether there is anything really there. Warning! Venus can sometimes appear very close to the Sun in the sky, and is bright enough to show up easily in twilight. If you look for it under those conditions, be careful to avoid looking directly at the Sun, as this would seriously damage your eyes.

		Last Updated: 1 Oct 07