51 Facts About Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it the closest to Earth.

Since Venus is orbiting relatively close to Earth with a synodic period of 1.

Venus is the second largest terrestrial object of the Solar System, with a surface gravity minimally lower than on Earth, but having only an induced magnetosphere.

Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from Earth in light.

Venus was the first planet to have its motions plotted across the sky, as early as the second millennium BCE.

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The possibility of life on Venus has long been a topic of speculation; in recent years, the topic has received active research with possible signs of life having been found.

Venus is one of the four terrestrial planets in the Solar System, meaning that it is a rocky body like Earth.

Venus's atmosphere is extremely rich in primordial noble gases compared to that of Earth.

The permanent cloud cover means that although Venus is closer than Earth to the Sun, it receives less sunlight on the ground.

Surface of Venus is effectively isothermal; it retains a constant temperature not only between the two hemispheres but between the equator and the poles.

Existence of lightning in the atmosphere of Venus has been controversial since the first suspected bursts were detected by the Soviet Venera probes.

In 2007, Venus Express discovered that a huge double atmospheric vortex exists at the south pole.

Venus Express discovered, in 2011, that an ozone layer exists high in the atmosphere of Venus.

Venus has some unique surface features in addition to the impact craters, mountains, and valleys commonly found on rocky planets.

Stratigraphically oldest tessera terrains have consistently lower thermal emissivity than the surrounding basaltic plains measured by Venus Express and Magellan, indicating a different, possibly a more felsic, mineral assemblage.

In January 2020, astronomers reported evidence that suggests that Venus is currently volcanically active, specifically the detection of olivine, a volcanic product that would weather quickly on the planet's surface.

In 2008 and 2009, the first direct evidence for ongoing volcanism was observed by Venus Express, in the form of four transient localized infrared hot spots within the rift zone Ganis Chasma, near the shield volcano Maat Mons.

Venus's small induced magnetosphere provides negligible protection to the atmosphere against cosmic radiation.

Lack of an intrinsic magnetic field at Venus was surprising, given that it is similar to Earth in size and was expected to contain a dynamo at its core.

One possibility is that Venus has no solid inner core, or that its core is not cooling, so that the entire liquid part of the core is at approximately the same temperature.

Weak magnetosphere around Venus means that the solar wind is interacting directly with its outer atmosphere.

Alex Alemi's and David Stevenson's 2006 study of models of the early Solar System at the California Institute of Technology shows Venus likely had at least one moon created by a huge impact event billions of years ago.

Venus fades to about magnitude -3 when it is backlit by the Sun.

Transits of Venus occur when the planet's inferior conjunction coincides with its presence in the plane of Earth's orbit.

The pentagram of Venus is sometimes referred to as the petals of Venus due to the path's visual similarity to a flower.

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Long-standing mystery of Venus observations is the so-called ashen light—an apparent weak illumination of its dark side, seen when the planet is in the crescent phase.

The ashen light has often been sighted when Venus is in the evening sky, when the evening terminator of the planet is towards to Earth.

Movements of Venus appear to be discontinuous, some cultures did not recognize Venus as a single entity; instead, they assumed it to be two separate stars on each horizon: the morning and evening star.

Ancient Greeks initially believed Venus to be two separate stars: Phosphorus, the morning star, and Hesperus, the evening star.

When Venus is furthest from the Sun in the sky, it shows a half-lit phase, and when it is closest to the Sun in the sky, it shows as a crescent or full phase.

Atmosphere of Venus was discovered in 1761 by Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov.

Venus's atmosphere was observed in 1790 by German astronomer Johann Schroter.

Venus correctly surmised this was due to scattering of sunlight in a dense atmosphere.

Venus suggested this was due to a dense, yellow lower atmosphere with high cirrus clouds above it.

Venus surmised the planet must have a much longer rotation period than had previously been thought.

Radar observations of Venus were first carried out in the 1960s, and provided the first measurements of the rotation period, which were close to the modern value.

Venus is a primary feature of the night sky, and so has been of remarkable importance in mythology, astrology and fiction throughout history and in different cultures.

The discontinuous movements of Venus relate to both mythology as well as Inanna's dual nature.

The planet Venus appears to make a similar descent, setting in the West and then rising again in the East.

Venus is known as Kejora in Indonesian and Malaysian Malay.

Ancient Egyptians and Greeks believed Venus to be two separate bodies, a morning star and an evening star.

Findings from the first missions to Venus showed the reality to be quite different and brought this particular genre to an end.

The Venus symbol represents femininity, and in Western alchemy stood for the metal copper.

Polished copper has been used for mirrors from antiquity, and the symbol for Venus has sometimes been understood to stand for the mirror of the goddess although that is unlikely to be its true origin.

Venus has been identified as the star in a range of star and crescent depictions and symbols.

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Speculation on the possibility of life on Venus's surface decreased significantly after the early 1960s when it became clear that the conditions are extreme compared to those on Earth.

The discovery prompted NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine to publicly call for a new focus on the study of Venus, describing the phosphine find as "the most significant development yet in building the case for life off Earth".

Venus is the place of the very first interplanetary human presence, mediated through robotic missions, with the first successful landings on another planet and extraterrestrial body other than the Moon.

Venus was at the beginning of the space age frequently visited by space probes until the 1990s.

Only nation that has sent lander probes to the surface of Venus has been the Soviet Union, which has been used by Russian officials to call Venus a "Russian planet".

High Altitude Venus Operational Concept by NASA is a mission concept that proposed a crewed aerostat design.