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VITAL STASTICS :
average distance from the Sun: about 108,200,000 km
diameter: 7505 miles = 12,104 km
mass: about 4,869,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
temperature: 480 C = 750 K = 900 F
number of moons: 0
any rings? no
length of a year: 224.7 of our days
length of a day: 243.01 of our days
WHAT IS IT MADE OF?
The surface of Venus is a thick crust of dried up volcano lava. About 2/3 of the surface is low, rolling mountains and the rest is high flat places and low areas. Venus used to have tons of volcanoes! Imagine the hottest dessert you can think of... Venus is way worse!
Venus' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide (this is what we breathe out) and the rest is mostly nitrogen. There is a very thick layer of poisonous clouds covering the entire planet. These clouds are made up of sulfuric acid droplets. (The clouds on earth are made up of water droplets.)
We think that Venus has an iron core just like the earth.
CAN WE LIVE THERE?
Venus is a lot like earth... It's about the same size. It's about the same mass. The surface rocks are about like ours. Compared to the other planets, it's got a distance from the Sun that is the closest to the earth.
But there are some major differences! There's hardly any water, the air is poisonous, the clouds are full of acid, the atmosphere is so thick and heavy that you'd be crushed by the pressure and, if that isn't enough for you, Venus is way way way too hot! Other than the Sun, Venus is the hottest place in our solar system. Even hotter than Mercury!
Why is Venus so hot? It's because of the thick layer of clouds... When heat goes in, it stays in! We call this the greenhouse effect. Have you ever made a little greenhouse out of some plastic wrap and put some plants inside? It gets really warm and moist inside the greenhouse -- this is great for many plants.
There's one last unpleasant thing about Venus: wind! In the upper atmosphere, the wind gets up to 350 km/h. That's 217 mph! On earth, when winds get up to 74 mph, we call it a hurricane!
OTHER COOL INFORMATION ABOUT VENUS :
Except for our moon, Venus is the brightest object in our night sky. If you know just where to look, you can even see it in the daytime. The reason Venus is so bright is that the Sun reflects off all those clouds.
One of the coolest things about Venus is that it rotates in the opposite direction of most of the other planets! If we look down on the planets from above we see that Venus rotates clockwise (the way a clock's hand move around the clock) and all the other planets (except Uranus and Pluto) and all the moons spin counterclockwise (like if the clock's hands were moving backwards). Check out this picture:
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| Author: Karthika M 19 May 2008 | Member Level: Gold Points : 2 |
It is very interesting.
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| Author: Raghav 20 May 2008 | Member Level: Diamond Points : 2 |
Thank you Karthika. I will post some more articles on other planets.
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| Author: Vidya 21 May 2008 | Member Level: Diamond Points : 2 |
yaa its amazing
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| Author: shoba 21 May 2008 | Member Level: Gold Points : 2 |
Very thanks for providing a detailed information about Venus.Keep rocking
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| Author: Raghav 21 May 2008 | Member Level: Diamond Points : 2 |
THANK YOU VIDYA AND SHOBA. I WILL KEEP ROCKING
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| Author: Shinu 31 May 2008 | Member Level: Gold Points : 2 |
This is very nice information. Thank You
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| Author: Raghav 01 Jun 2008 | Member Level: Diamond Points : 0 |
Thank you Shinu for your response.
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