Venus

   Venus is the second closest planet to the sun.  It also has one of the more violent atmospheres. There are three main cloud layers in Venus's atmosphere.  The top layer is thin and hazy, and this layer droplets contain sulfuric acid and mysterious "snowflakes."  Winds in this layer can reach up to 350 km per hour, while on the surface, winds are only about 4 km per hour. However, on the surface there is more air resistance because the carbon dioxide atmosphere is 91 times greater than on earth. Sunlight that filters through get trapped by the carbon dioxide, which causes the planet to heat up.  Temperatures on the surface can get up to 460 degrees.

   Astronomers refer to Venus as Earth's sister planet. Both are similar in size, mass, density and volume. Both formed about the same time and condensed out of the same nebula. However, during the last few years scientists have found that the kinship ends here. Venus is very different from the Earth. It has no oceans and is surrounded by a heavy atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide with virtually no water vapor. Its clouds are composed of sulfuric acid droplets. At the surface, the atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of the Earth's at sea-level.

   Venus is scorched with a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F). This high temperature is primarily due to a runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavy atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere to heat the surface of the planet. Heat is radiated out, but is trapped by the dense atmosphere and not allowed to escape into space. This makes Venus hotter than Mercury.

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