Venus

Venus. . , Early Romans named the dazzling white planet Venus, after their goddess of love and beauty. Venus is sometimes called Earth's sister planet because both are about the same size, composition and age. But conditions on the two planets are very different , Venus is more like our angry sister! The atmospheres on both Earth and Venus were created by gases expelled during millions of years of volcanic activity. Our air supports life while that on Venus makes life, at least as we know it, impossible. While the lower atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and moves very slowly, there are miles-thick layers of sulfuric acid clouds that circle the surface with hurricane force. So thick is this atmosphere that the pressure on the planet's surface is 90 times that on Earth. Simply standing on Venus you would be crushed like a cheap bag of chips! In fact, all of the multi-million dollar spacecrafts that have successfully reached Venus, after the three month trip, have been destroyed by the acid, winds and pressure within an hour of landing. In 1990 NASA's Magellan spacecraft arrived at Venus in order to map the surface with radio waves. Wisely programmers had Magellan simply orbit, rather than attempt to land!! Venus exists in a perpetual state of "green house" effect where the Sun's radiant energy reaches the surface of the planet but the carbon dioxide atmosphere won't let it back out. Where else in the Universe is this an issue? , Champion of Hot!! , Thanks to the green house effect Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System. It is hotter even than Mercury in spite of being twice as far from the Sun!! On Venus lead would melt like butter on your toast. Yumm!!, Champion of Slow!! , Venus is the only planet that rotates East to West and it does so very slowly. So slowly that a day on Venus lasts longer than a year there!!, From Earth, Venus appears white as we see sunlight reflected off of its dense cloud cover. On the surface though, Venus appears differently as the carbon dioxide atmosphere filters blue out of the Sun’s white light, revealing blue’s complimentary color, orange., Dropping in on the Neighbors… , Between the 1950’s and the 1990’s America and the Soviet Union were involved in a race to explore space. Venus was visited early and often but it was no easy task. The Soviet's first 14 attempts to reach Venus all failed , blowing up during launch, failing to leave Earth orbit, losing contact during the trip or even crash landing upon arrival. In total, the Soviet Union attempted 32 missions, while America has made 9 attempts with 8 of them being successful., 1962 . Mariner 2 , First ever flyby of another planet, 1965 . Venera 3 , First ever crash landing on another planet!!, 1970 . Venera 7 , First ever communication sent from another planet and received on Earth, 1974 . Mariner 10 , First ever planetary slingshot as Mariner 10 does a flyby and uses Venus’ gravity to redirect itself on to Mercury, 1975 . Venera 9 , First in orbit around Venus; First soft landing on another planet, 1990-1994 . Magellan , After being launched from the Space Shuttle, Magellan uses radio waves to map the entire Venusian surface., Most of the features on Venus are given female names. There are craters named Cleopatra (Queen of Egypt), Clara Barton (founder of the Red Cross) and Gertrude Stein (American writer). Who would you nominate for this honor?, Venus , the 2nd Planet , Diameter: 7,521 miles , Speed around the Sun: 78,120 mph , Time to Orbit the Sun: 225 Earth Days , Length of Day: 243 Earth Days , Average Temperature: 850 F , Mass: 81% of Earth’s , Gravity: 88% of Earth’s , Moons: 0. , [captions] , . I could do without the sulfuric acid , . Take a look back at our model of the Sun. It’s 9 feet across. If the models were to scale the four inner planets would be the tiny sizes shown above.