Facts about Venus
Venus is a rather fascinating planet. It’s very similar in size to Earth, but very different in lots of other ways.
What you need to know about Venus
- The atmosphere of Venus is made up mostly of carbon dioxide.
- It’s slightly smaller than Earth. So it’s a pretty big place then!
- Another interesting thing is that its gravity is very similar to that on Earth.
- Whoa, this is quite something! Venus is surrounded by clouds that have mercury, ferric chloride hydrocarbons and sulphuric acid in them. Big words, but they aren’t good! These clouds make the most seriously destructive acid rain found anywhere in our solar system. Not keen to visit there, that’s for sure!
The clouds are so thick that hardly any light reaches the surface. The light that does make its way down to the surface is turned into heat and can’t escape the atmosphere. So what does this do? Well this makes Venus the hottest planet at around 500⁰C. Now that is one seriously hot planet, if we went there we’d fry for sure! Think about it like this. On a warm summer’s day in London, the temperatures would be about 26°C. That’s almost 20 times hotter!
- The surface of Venus is often called a ‘stormy desert’. The reason for this is that there are heaps of craters and absolutely loads of active volcanoes.
- Venus has absolutely no liquid water. Boy we’d be thirsty!
- The planets in the Solar system are given the names of Roman Gods or their assistants. Venus is named after the Roman Goddess of love and beauty.
- Venus, just like Mercury, has no moons.
- In 1975 the Soviet Union sent two spacecraft landers to Venus, Venera 9 and Venera 10. These landers were the very first to reach the planet’s surface and they sent back lots of pictures to Earth. That would be cool to see those!
Interesting Facts about Venus
- If we had to try and live on Venus, absolutely no way! That’s because of its seriously hot weather and the atmosphere which is full of carbon dioxide.
- Now this is strange! Can you believe that all the mountains and craters on Venus have all been given girl names? There’s a crater called Billie Holiday, who was a female American jazz singer.
- But boys unite, as there is one male name – the Maxwell Mountains which are named after the Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell. Cool, at least one for the boys!
- There are continents on Venus, and the one has been named Aphrodite, who was the Greek Goddess of love and beauty.
- If you head to Venus, you’d actually weigh pretty much the same as you do on Earth, you’d be just a little bit lighter.
Did you know the Earth has a sister? Well it’s none other than Venus, and that’s because they are so similar in size, gravity and density. Basically it is made up of almost exactly the same things that Earth is made of like volcanoes, mountains and sand. Interesting huh? So we’ve got a sister!
- It’s highly possible that all of Venus’ water has evaporated into the atmosphere. This is what traps the sun’s energy making that surface hotter and hotter.
Venus has absolutely loads of volcanoes, all over the place! No one really knows for sure, but people think that there are more volcanoes on Venus than any other planets in the solar system. But these volcanoes are different. On Earth volcanoes erupt violently, but on Venus they aren’t as strong and viscous when they explode. But people also think that these volcanoes don’t erupt at all, that the lava just flows slowly to the surface!
Wow this is pretty cool! If you had to somehow find a way to live on Venus, unlikely as it is, you’ll notice something really strange about the days. Venus rotates so slowly it’s like a snail, and a day on Venus is like 100 Earth days! No way, that would mean one seriously long school year.
Venus also rotates in the opposite direction as almost all the other planets. So instead of the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, the sun on Venus rises in the west and sets in the east. How weird is that?
Venus is one super interesting planet, and now go forth and share your knowledge!
