Venus

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Venus

• By
• Mason 9B-7
• Tyler 9B-4

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Where is Venus?
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 Earths 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 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
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Mythology of Venus
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
craftsman-god, 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).
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Venus' Surface
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 earths twin sister
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Venus' Atmosphere
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 know whether Venus was a planet
covered with craters like Mercury, Mars and the
Moon, whether it had hills, mountains, valleys or
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.
Venus is a terrestrial planet which means it is
not a gas planet
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 600c. 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
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Rotation and Revolution
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
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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.
Other Facts
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.
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Interesting Facts

• 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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Works Sited
www.google.com www.walmart.com
www.nineplanets.com
By
Mason Ledbetter Tyler Hohner