Named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, Venus is our closest planetary neighbour and is
the second brightest object in the night's sky, after the moon. It has a similar structure
and size to Earth, that consists of a thin rocky outer crust that moves above a hot churning
layer of magma and finally a solid iron core. It measures roughly 7520 miles or 12,104 kilometres
in diameter, making it slightly smaller than Earth and it orbits the sun from an average
distance of 67 million miles or 108 million kilometres away. Venus is shrouded by a thick
blanket of carbon dioxide that obscures the planet's surface. This dense atmosphere traps
the Sun's heat, like panes of glass in a greenhouse, creating a process known as the runaway greenhouse
effect. Because of global warming, Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, with
surface temperatures reaching a scalding 472 degree Celsius or 880 degrees Fahrenheit.
However, around 30 miles above the Venusian surface the temperature drastically drops
and is about the same as here on Earth. A recent study has even suggested that the cooler
top cloud layers of Venus might have the right conditions to support microorganism which
could help to explain strange atmospheric patterns that have baffled scientists for
decades. Below the dense cloud cover, Venus is a scorched deformed world that is covered
with ancient lava flows. The atmosphere down here is so dense that if you could stand on
this surface it would feel like you were under 3000 feet or 914 metres of water, as the surface
pressure is a crushing 92 bar. Most of the Venusian landscape is fairly flat, however,
several large mountains and volcanoes are visible, the tallest being, Maxwell Montes,
a structure that is 7 miles or 11 kilometres high, making it bigger than Mount Everest.
This hostile, dry environment makes it impossible for life as we know it to exist down here
and even the metal spacecraft that successfully landed only managed to survive for about an
hour, before being crushed and melted. But venus may not have always been the scorching
hellish world that we see today, as certain studies have revealed that possibly only 700
million ago, the deadly planet was covered with flowing shallow oceans of liquid water.
If this is correct, then Venus may have been briefly habitable over a few hundred million
years, possibly even long enough for life to begin. Together with Mercury, Venus is
one of the few planets in the solar system without a moon and it is the only planet in
the solar system to rotate clockwise, which is called retrograde rotation. This means
that If you were able to stand on Venus, the sun would rise in the west and set in the
east. The retrograde rotation is also extremely slow, making one day on Venus the same as
243 earth days, however, one year on Venus lasts only 225 earth days, making a Venusian
day longer than a Venusian year. Exploration of Venus has been difficult over
the years because of its extreme atmosphere. But many spacecraft have visited the mysterious
planet. In the 1960s,70s and 80s the former Soviet Unions Venera probes plunged through
the planet's clouds and were able to send back data, some even managed to capture the
first-ever images of its mysterious landscape. In more recent times, Astronomers have used
powerful radar signals from radio telescopes and orbiting satellites, to penetrate the
clouds and map the planets surface, revealing 98% of its scarred volcanic terrain.
Although we know a lot about Venus, there are still many mysteries that are waiting to
be solved and by Studying this bizarre world we can better understand
our own atmosphere, possibly even preventing the Earth from one day becoming
the next Venus.