Venus
By
Mason 9B-7
Tyler 9B-4
Venus is the second planet in our solar system right
behind Mercury and right in front of Earth
Venus is the second inner planet of the solar
system
Venus is the second
planet from the Sun, at
a distance of roughly
108,209,000 kilometers.
With an orbital
circumference of
680,000,000 kilometers,
Venus is just slightly
smaller than the Earth
and has a very similar
chemical composition.
For this reason, Venus is
commonly referred to
as the Earth’s “sister”
planet. It takes Venus
just under 225 days to
orbit the Sun on full
time, compared to the
365 day orbital period
of the Earth.
Venus is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Aphrodite was the
goddess of love. The Romans called her Venus (hence the famous armless
statue known as the Venus de Milo). Aphrodite lived on Mount Olympus
with the other supreme deities and was married to the homely craftsmangod, Hephaestus. She was said to have been born from the foam of the
sea (hence Botticelli's much-reproduced painting of the goddess floating
on a seashell).
There are constant
thunderstorms in these
clouds. The surface of
Venus has many craters
which were made by
meteorites and asteroids
crashing into the planet.
Venus also has
volcanoes. This planet is
unusual because it
rotates in a direction
opposite that of all of
the other planets. Venus
spins very slowly as it
orbits the Sun.
Venus is on the 5 inside planets in our solar system.
The surface is a very hot and dry surface Venus is also
known as earth’s twin sister
Venus may be the planet closest to Earth and the brightest object in
the sky after the Sun and the Moon, but it was only recently that we
have been able to discover what the planet's surface is like. We didn't
Venus is a terrestrial
know whether Venus was a planet covered with craters like Mercury,
planet which means it is
Mars and the Moon, whether it had hills, mountains, valleys or
not a gas planet
volcanoes, or showed any signs of life existing on its surface. This is
because Venus is totally covered by a heavy cloudy shield, as shown
in the picture below, taken by the Mariner 10 spacecraft in February
1974.
The swirling clouds look peaceful, but they are
deinitely not! The planet receives heat from the
Sun, but, because of its thick cloud cover, the
heat is trapped under the cloud, unable to
escape back into space as it does on Earth.
This is similar to how a greenhouse works on
Earth. Temperatures can reach up to 600°c. It
is because of this reason that Venus is the
hottest planet in the Solar System, even though
it is not the closest planet to the Sun
A Venusian day is 243 Earth days
and is longer than its year of 225
days.
Venus' rotation is somewhat unusual in that it is both very
slow (243 Earth days per Venus day, slightly longer than
Venus' year) and retrograde. In addition, the periods of
Venus' rotation and of its orbit are synchronized such
that it always presents the same face toward Earth when
the two planets are at merely a coincidence is not known
their closest approach.
Average Solar Distance 108.2
million km Revolution Period 224.7
Earth days Rotation Period 243
Earth days Equatorial diameter
12,100 km Gravitational Pull 0.91
times the Earth Natural Satellites 0
SIZE
Venus is about 7,521 miles (12,104 km) in diameter. This
is about 95% of the diameter of the Earth. Venus is the
closest to Earth in size and mass of any of the other
planets.
MASS AND GRAVITY
Venus' mass is about 4.87 x 1024 kg. The gravity on
Venus is 91% of the gravity on Earth. A 100-pound
person would weigh 91 pounds on Venus.
The density of Venus is 5,240 kg/m3, slightly less dense
than the Earth and the third densest planet in our Solar
System (after the Earth and Mercury).
How many moons orbit Venus?
None. There are no natural satellites orbiting Venus.
The only bodies orbiting it are the ones we have placed there such as
NASA's Magellan radar satellite which produced the above picture of
the surface of Venus. Radar signals penetrate the atmosphere and reveal
a very complex and tortured terrain. Magellan's initial orbit was highly
elliptical, taking it as close as 294 kilometers (182 miles) from Venus and
as far away as 8,543 kilometers (5,296 miles). The orbit was a polar one,
meaning that the spacecraft moved from south to north or vice versa
during each looping pass, flying over Venus's north and south poles.
Magellan completed one orbit every 3 hours, 15 minutes.
•Planet Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun, and the sixth largest overall.
•Venus was named after the goddess of love and beauty probably for its relative
brightness, compared to the other planets.
•Venus is known as Earth's "sister planet" because of the similarity in mass, size,
volume and density.
•Both also formed from the same nebula at about the same time.
•Yet, Venus has no oceans and is surrounded by a heavy carbon monoxide
atmosphere, and it's atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of the Earth's at sea
level.
•Venus probably once had water like Earth does, but because of the scorching surface
temperature of 482 degrees C (900 degrees F), it soon evaporated.
•This heated temperature is due to a runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavily
carbon dioxide filled atmosphere.
•Venus also shows proof of volcanic activity on its surface terrain.
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Mason Ledbetter
Tyler Hohner
www.walmart.com