Contents
Quick
Facts:
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the sixth largest.
Venus has the most nearly circular orbit of any planet.
Venus' surface is actually hotter than Mercury's despite being nearly
twice as far from the Sun.
Venus has no magnetic field.
Distance from the Sun: 108,200,000 km (67,200,000 miles or 0.72 AU)
Period of Revolution: 224.7 days 
Diameter: 12,103.6 km (7,700 miles)
Mass: 4.869e24 kg
Pressure at the Surface: 90 atmospheres
Satellites: 0
Mythology:
Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. The planet was probably named
this because it was the brightest of the planets known at the time.
Rotation:
Venus' rotation is somewhat unusual in that it is both very slow (243
Earth days per Venus day) and retrograde.
In addition, the periods of Venus' rotation and of its orbit are synchronized
such that it always presents the same face toward Earth when the two planets
are at their closest approach. Whether this is a resonance effect or merely
a coincidence is not known.
Earth's Sister
Planet:
Venus is sometimes regarded as Earth's sister planet. In some ways
they are very similar:
-
Venus is only slightly smaller than Earth (95% of Earth's diameter, 80%
of Earth's mass).
-
Both have few craters indicating relatively young surfaces.
-
Their densities and chemical compositions are similar.
Because of these similarities, it was thought that below its dense clouds
Venus might be very Earth like and might even have life. But, unfortunately,
more detailed study of Venus revealed that in many important ways it is
radically different from Earth.
Craters:
There are almost no small craters on Venus. It seems that small meteoroids
burn up in Venus' dense atmosphere before reaching the surface. Craters
on Venus seem to come in bunches indicating that large meteoriods that
do reach the surface usually break up in the atmosphere.
