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Venus. An “Earth” Gone Wrong?. By Tyler Reynolds, Alyssa Goodwin, and Megan Garrett.
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Venus An “Earth” Gone Wrong? By Tyler Reynolds, Alyssa Goodwin, and Megan Garrett
Inappropriately named for the ancient goddess of love, Venus is an unfriendly world permanently clouded by a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere. None of it’s surface features are visible through conventional telescopes.
Distance from Sun: 1.08 x 108 Km Time for full revolution: 224.7 Earth Days Time for full rotation: 243 Earth Days Orbital Speed: 35,000 meters/second Planetary Diameter: 12,100 Km Mass: 81.5% Earth's Known Satellites: None
When Venus passes directly between earth and the sun, we see the distant planet as a small dot gliding slowly across the face of the sun. The last transit of Venus occurred June 5-6, 2012. The next pair of Sun-Venus-Earth alignments will be December 2117 and 2125.
Venus is the second planet from the sun and the closest planet to Earth. The diameter of Venus is about 7,520 miles which is about 400 miles smaller than that of Earth.
In December 1970, Soviet Russia achieved a successful landing of a robotic spacecraft on Venus. The lander survived for about twenty minutes before succumbing to the intense heat and pressure.
Venus is a hot planet because of its atmosphere and close proximity to the Sun. The crust of Venus is rocky and very hot. Venus' crust is made up of silicates, the substance of rocks. On Venus, there are several layers of clouds to pass through before you reach the hot, rocky surface.
The Maat Mons Volcano stands 8 Km tall on Venus' surface and spreads a layer of lava hundreds of kilometers. Venus also has one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. It is 4 times as long and twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.
Venus rotates backwards compared to all the other planets in the Solar System. If you could fly up above the Solar System and then look down at the planets, all of them are turning in a counter-clockwise direction. Except Venus. It’s turning in a clockwise direction.
Works Cited http://www.planetfacts.net/Venus-Facts.html http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/index.cfm http://library.thinkquest.org/27444/english/venus/venus.html http://www.transitofvenus.org/