Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. As the brightest natural object in Earth's night sky after the Moon, Venus can cast shadows and can be, on rare occasions, visible to the naked eye in broad daylight. Venus lies within Earth's orbit, and so never appears to venture far from the Sun, either setting in the west just after dusk or rising in the east a little while before dawn. Venus orbits the Sun every 224.7 Earth days. With a sidereal rotation period of 243 Earth days and a synodic day length of 117 Earth days, it takes significantly longer to rotate about its axis than any other planet in the Solar System, and does so in the opposite direction to all but Uranus (meaning the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east). Venus does not have any moons, a distinction it shares only with Mercury among the planets in the Solar System.Venus is a terrestrial planet and is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" because of their similar size, mass, proximity to the Sun, and bulk composition. It is radically different from Earth in other respects. It has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96% carbon dioxide. The atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is about 92 times the sea level pressure of Earth, or roughly the pressure at 900 m (3,000 ft) underwater on Earth. Even though Mercury is closer to the Sun, Venus has the hottest surface of any planet in the Solar System, with a mean temperature of 737 K (464 °C; 867 °F). Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light. It may have had water oceans in the past, but these would have vaporized as the temperature rose due to a runaway greenhouse effect. The water has probably photodissociated, and the free hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field.As one of the brightest objects in the sky, Venus has been a major fixture in human culture for as long as records have existed. It has been made sacred to gods of many cultures, and has been a prime inspiration for writers and poets as the "morning star" and "evening star". Venus was the first planet to have its motions plotted across the sky, as early as the second millennium BC.Due to its proximity to Earth, Venus has been a prime target for early interplanetary exploration. It was the first planet beyond Earth visited by a spacecraft (Mariner 2 in 1962), and the first to be successfully landed on (by Venera 7 in 1970). Venus's thick clouds render observation of its surface impossible in visible light, and the first detailed maps did not emerge until the arrival of the Magellan orbiter in 1991. Plans have been proposed for rovers or more complex missions, but they are hindered by Venus's hostile surface conditions. The possibility of life on Venus has long been a topic of speculation, and in recent years has received active research.
Yup, me again, with yet another question i can't seem to find an answer to.
Why doesn't the eath have as many craters as its Moon or Venus?
These questions seem like they would be so easy to answer, but I am still having trouble figuring them out. :grumpy:
I took a look at this video of the transit:
http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-global/venus_transit/UV1600_eastlimb2.mov
And something just doesn't look right. It appears that Venus changes direction once it comes into full view. I played it foward and backwards, put a...
Hi there
I'm looking for a source of the maths that Halley did, and also that of Horrocks so that I can run through it with some Maths/Physics students.
Google searches have given many different sites, but none have been that good so far.
If anyone could help me with a link, I'd...
Transit of Venus - WHO SAW IT?
Who Saw it?
I stayed up all night with some of my friends watching movies as we waited for the sun to rise. Then when it started to we realized that the sun we could probably get a better view if we found a open farm field. So we all piled in a car, and I had...
I won't get to see this rare event in my part of the U.S. :frown: However, I still wanted to share with you all this conjunction of Venus and the Sun June 8th, 2004.
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/transit/venus0412.html
Working on my point paper of the https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=2974 and I need to address the runaway greenhouse effect ideas. Now we have this:
http://www.vt-2004.org/Background/Infol2/EIS-D7.html
I thought this would occur not below 900-1100 degrees celsius as in...
Is this guy a space cadet, or does book speakum truth? I have never actually read this. I bought it but I don't even know where it is. I have listened to him quite a bit, and my wife got a calendar with a rule for each day sort of thing. Much of what I have seen really explodes with truth...
There may have been other threads, wondering about the mystery of Venus. Or to sum up:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/feature...enus/venus.html
There seems to be some explaning to do here for the boldface. We have some tidal - gravity lock mechanism that may have caused that rotation stop, but...