Venus, the jewel of the sky, was once know by ancient astronomers as
the morning star and evening star. Early astronomers once thought Venus
to be two separate bodies. Venus, which is named after the Roman goddess
of love and beauty, is veiled by thick swirling cloud cover. Astronomers
refer to Venus as Earth's sister planet. Both are similar in size, mass,
density and volume but 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.
Venus has a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F). This
high temperature makes it impossible for us to be on the surface and makes
Venus hotter than Mercury even though it is farther from the Sun.
Venus rotates very slowly making its day longer than its year. A Venusian
day is 243 Earth days and is longer than its year of 225 days. This is hard
to understand but if we think about it, we are the ones who invented the
day and the year. If there were people on Venus, they might think of their
calendar backwards from us. Another strange thing about Venus for us is
that it rotates from east to west, the opposite of Earth. This makes the
SunOddly, Venus rotates from east to west. To an observer on Venus, the
Sun rise in the west and set in the east.
Venus Statistics
Mean distance from the Sun (km) ................. 108,200,000
