Venus
The thick clouds of Venus are made of carbon dioxide gas and sulphuric acid,
and they reflect sunlight and make Venus shine like a star.
Venus
- the second planet from the Sun is Venus.
- Its orbit makes it 67 million miles away at the Sun nearest and 68 million miles away at its furthest.
- sometimes it is called the `Evening Star` – because it can be seen from Earth in the evening, just after sunset.
- however, it can also be seen before sunrise – its visible at these times because it is quite close to the Sun – `Morning Star`.
- the hottest planet in the Solar System – surface temperature of more than 470°C.
- so hot – because of the carbon dioxide in its atmosphere traps the Sun’s heat – this overheating is called a runaway greenhouse effect. (diagram)
Venus:- Greenhouse effect
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- thick clouds hide its surface so well that until the Russian Venera 9 probe landed on Venus in 1975 – it was not known what was beneath the clouds. (wikipedia)
- pressure on the surface of Venus is 90 times more than our Earth’s pressure.
- “24 hour / one day” – the time Venus takes to spin around once lasts 243 Earth days – longer than its year, which lasts 224.7 days.
- Venus is the nearest planet to Earth in size, measuring 7,563 miles in diameter.
Did you know?
- Venus rotates backwards.
- the atmosphere of Venus is mostly carbon dioxide gas with thick clouds containing sulphuric acid – giving out by this planet’s volcanoes.
Venus – this planet’s volcanoes
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- the 3¾ miles-high volcano on the surface of Venus is called Maat Mons – it had been created on computer using radar data collected by the Magellan Orbiter, which reached Venus in 1990’s.
Magellan Orbiter
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