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Venus
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Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love. It is the closest in size to Earth than
any other planet. It is hidden underneath thick layers of clouds that reflect light. This
causes the intense brightness in our night sky. Because it is close to the sun, it is only
visible in the early morning and late night.
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The surface of Venus is very hot (475oC) and the air pressure is
almost 100 times that of Earth. The atmosphere is almost completely carbon dioxide (a
greenhouse gas) which creates the greenhouse effect. The Earth has a very mild case
of this. On Venus the greenhouse effect is 300,000 times that of Earth. This is the cause
of the intense heat. Like the Earth, Venus's atmosphere is its secondary atmosphere.
Volcanoes release large amounts of ions into the atmosphere which cause lightning storms.
The surface of Venus is so hot the periodically the surface melts. From radar images, it
can be seen that there are many volcanoes. The surface is roughly divided up between 65%
low rolling plains, 25% highlands, with the rest being volcanic areas. There are two
prominent mountainous areas, Ishtar and Aphrodite. Ishtar is the Babylonian goddess of
love; Aphrodite, the Greek. Ishtar is the size of Australia and Aphrodite is about the
size of South America.
Venus does not exhibit any evidence of plate tectonic activity. The mantle does deform the
crust, forming large bulges, called coronae. Some mountains such as the Maxwell Monte,
which are almost twice as high as Mount Everest.
Venus also has an odd rotation, because when it is viewed from the North Pole it spins in
a clockwise direction. All other planets except Uranus, exhibit a counter-clockwise
rotation in respect to the North Pole. This odd rotation leads scientists to believe that
it was hit by a large object sometime in its life.
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Distance from Sun:
Mean— 67,320,000 mi.
Shortest— 66,800,000 mi.
Greatest— 67,700,000 mi.
Closest approach to Earth— 25,700,000 mi.
Length of year (earth-days)— 224.7
Average orbital speed— 21.77 mi. per sec.
Diameter at equator— 7,521
Rotation period— 243 earth-days
Tilt of axis "(degrees)— 178
Temperature— 864 *F
Atmosphere:
Pressure— 1,323 lbs. per sq. in
Gasses— Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water vapor, argon, carbon monoxide, neon, sulfur
dioxide
Mass (Earth=1)— 0.851
Density (g/cubic cm)— 5.25
Gravity (Earth=1)— 0.879
Number of known satellites— 0 |
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[Mercury | Venus | Earth | Mars | Jupiter]
[Saturn | Uranus | Neptune | Pluto]
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