10 characteristics of VENUS

Venus, the second planet from the sun, is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.. The planet, the only planet to be named after a woman, may have been named for the most beautiful deity in her pantheon because it shone the brightest of the five planets known to ancient astronomers. In this article we will see the most notable features of Venus.

In ancient times, Venus was often believed to be two different stars, the evening star and the morning star., that is, those that appeared for the first time at sunset and sunrise. In Latin, they were known respectively as Vesper and Lucifer. In Christian times, Lucifer, or "light bearer," became known as the name of Satan before his fall. However, other space-age observations of Venus show a very hellish environment. This makes Venus a very difficult planet to observe up close, because spacecraft don't survive very long on its surface.

Venus characteristics: physical, orbital and climatic

1. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system. Although Venus isn't the closest planet to the sun, its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway version of the Earth-warming greenhouse effect. As a result, temperatures on Venus reach 870 degrees Fahrenheit (465 degrees Celsius), more than hot enough to melt lead. The probes that scientists have landed there have survived for only a few hours before being destroyed.
2. It has a hellish atmosphere, which consists mainly of carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid, and scientists have only detected trace amounts of water in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is heavier than that of any other planet, leading to a surface pressure 90 times that of Earth. Incredibly, however, early in Venus' history, the planet may have been habitable, according to models by NASA researchers at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
3. The surface of Venus is extremely dry.. During its evolution, the sun's ultraviolet rays evaporated the water rapidly, keeping it in a prolonged molten state. Today there is no liquid water on its surface because the scorching heat created by its ozone-filled atmosphere could cause it to evaporate. Approximately two-thirds of the surface of Venus is covered by flat, flat plains that are marked by thousands of volcanoes, some of which are still active today, ranging from 0.5 to 150 miles (0.8 to 240 kilometers) across, with carved lava flows, meandering channels over 3,000 miles (5,000 km) in length, longer than on any other planet.
4. Venus rotates on its axis in the opposite direction that most planets rotate.. That means that on Venus, the sun would appear to rise in the west and set in the east. On Earth, the sun appears to rise in the east and set in the west.
5. The Venusian year, the time it takes to orbit the sun, is about 225 Earth days.. Normally, that would mean that days on Venus would be longer than years. However, due to Venus' curious retrograde rotation, the time from one sunrise to the next is only 117 Earth days. [Gallery: transit of Venus from June 5, 2012, when the planet last transited across the sun until the year 2117.



6. average distance from the sun: 67,237,910 miles (108,208,930 km). For comparison: 0.723 times that of Earth
7. The metallic iron core of Venus is approximately 6,000 km wide.. The molten rocky mantle of Venus is approximately 3,000 km thick. The Venusian crust is mostly basaltic, and is estimated to be 10 to 20 km thick on average.
8. Venus' cloud tops expand around the planet every four Earth days., driven by hurricane force winds traveling at approximately 360 km/h. This super-rotation of the planet's atmosphere, some 60 times faster than Venus itself, may be one of Venus's greatest mysteries. Winds on the planet's surface are much slower, estimated to be only a few kilometers per hour.
9. A day on Venus lasts more than a year.. It takes 243 Earth days to rotate once on its axis (sidereal day). The planet's orbit around the Sun takes 225 Earth days, compared to 365 on Earth. One day on the surface of Venus (solar day) takes 117 Earth days.
10. Venus is believed to have once had oceans, but these evaporated as the planet's temperature increased. At one time it was thought that Venus could be a tropical paradise. The dense clouds of sulfuric acid that surround Venus make it impossible to see its surface from outside its atmosphere. It was only when radio mapping was developed in the 1960s that scientists were able to observe and measure the extreme temperatures and harsh environment.

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