Various facts about the planet Venus

In this article we look at a variety of facts about the planet Venus.

Various facts

Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.

Venus is the second largest of the four terrestrial planets.

Its atmosphere has carbon dioxide levels at more than 96%.

Venus orbits the sun every 224.65 days.

It takes 243 Earth days to rotate once on its axis.

So a day on Venus lasts longer than a year.

Venus’ equatorial circumference is 38025 km.

The circumference is only 638 km shorter than Earth’s equatorial circumference.

Venus has a radius of 6051 km.

Venus’ mass is 4,867,320,000,000,000 billion kg.

This is equal to 0.815 x Earth mass.

The surface temperature on Venus is 462 degrees Celsius. This is because of the cloud cover causing a greenhouse effect.

The temperature on Venus does not vary much between night and day.

One day on Venus takes longer than a year on Earth.

Venus rotates clockwise. This is fairly unique as the only other planet in our Solar System that does this is Uranus.

Venus comes closer to Earth than any other planet.

There are mountains on Venus that are higher than those on Earth.

One of Venus’ mountains called Maat Mons is more than five miles high.

Venus is the second brightest natural object in the sky.

Venus is sometimes known as the “morning star” and “evening star”.

The ancient Greeks called Venus Phosphorus, and Hesperus.

The ancient Romans called Venus Lucifer and Vesper.

Venus is sometimes called Earth’s sister planet. This is mainly due to the size being so similar, that is where it ends though.

Venus has no known moons.

Venus does not have a ring system.

The atmospheric pressure of Venus is 92 times stronger than Earth’s.

Venus has 81.5% of the Earth’s mass.

More than 1000 volcanoes or volcanic centres larger than 20 km have been found on the surface of Venus.

Venera 3 was the first man-made craft to land on Venus in 1966.

Mayan astronomers made detailed observations of Venus as early as 650 AD.

The estimated age of the surface of Venus is around 300-400 million years old. By comparison the Earth is only 100 million years old.

Venus has a very weak magnetic field.

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