Venus: a Window into The Inner Workings of Our Solar System

Venus’ atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets. The thick atmosphere traps the sun’s heat, resulting in surface temperatures higher than 880 degrees F% (470 degrees C%). The atmosphere has many layers with different temperatures. At the level where the clouds are, about 30 miles up from the surface, it’s about the same temperature as on the surface of the Earth.

As Venus moves forward in its solar orbit while slowly rotating backwards on its axis, the top level of clouds zips around the planet every four Earth days, driven by hurricane-force winds traveling at about 224 miles (360 kl) per hour. Atmospheric lightning bursts light up these quick-moving clouds. Speeds within the clouds decrease with cloud height, and at the surface are estimated to be just a few miles per hour.

On the ground, it would look like a very hazy, overcast day on Earth. And the atmosphere is so heavy it would feel like you were 1 mile (1.6 kl) deep underwater.

With a radius of 3,760 miles (6,052 kl), Venus is roughly the same size as Earth, just slightly smaller. So it is called the Earth’s sister. From an average distance of 67 million miles (108 million kl), Venus is 0.7 astronomical units away from the sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 6 minutes to travel from the sun to Venus.

Its highest mountain is Maxwell Montes, It’s 20,000 feet high (8.8kl) If you never knew Venus spins the exact opposite way of earth. No human has visited Venus, but the spacecraft that have been sent to the surface of Venus do not last very long there. Venus’ high surface temperature overheat electronics in spacecraft in a short time, so it seems unlikely that a person could survive for long on the Venusian surface.

Venus close up the rocks are different shades of grey, like rocks on Earth, but the thick atmosphere filters the sunlight so that everything would look orange if you were standing on Venus. It is thought that Venus was completely resurfaced by volcanic activity 300 to 500 million years ago. Venus has two large highland areas: Ishtar Terra, about the size of Australia, in the north polar region; and Aphrodite Terra, about the size of South America, straddling the equator and extending for almost 6,000 miles (10,000)

Venus from a far From space, Venus is bright white because it is covered with clouds that reflect and scatter sunlight. At the surface it looks like a peal

In conclusion, Venus is the best planet Because Venus’ atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets. And Venus is roughly the same size as Earth, just slightly smaller! Also no human has visited Venus, but the spacecraft have!

Works Cited

1. Esposito, L. W. (1984). Venus: Atmospheric motion and circulation. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 12(1), 413-450.
2. Grinspoon, D. H. (1997). Venus revealed: A new look below the clouds of our mysterious twin planet. Addison-Wesley.
3. Limaye, S. S., & Suomi, V. E. (2008). Venus: Atmosphere. In Encyclopedia of the Solar System (2nd ed., pp. 459-474). Elsevier.
4. Markiewicz, W. J., Petrova, E. V., & Shalygin, E. V. (2018). Geology of Venus: New data from Venus Express. In Comparative Climatology of Terrestrial Planets (pp. 211-229). University of Arizona Press.
5. Piccioni, G., Drossart, P., & Encrenaz, T. (2010). Venus: Composition and surface features. In Venus and Mercury: And How to Observe Them (pp. 29-49). Springer.
6. Seiff, A., Schofield, J. T., & Kliore, A. J. (1985). Structure of the atmosphere of Venus. In Venus (pp. 103-161). University of Arizona Press.
7. Seiff, A., Schofield, J. T., & Taylor, F. W. (1997). Venus: Atmosphere. In Encyclopedia of Planetary Sciences (pp. 806-808). Chapman & Hall.