Venus Facts
Venus Facts
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Interesting Venus Facts: |
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Venus' equatorial circumference is 38,025 km. This is only 638 km shorter than Earth's equatorial circumference. |
Venus was first recorded by Babylonian astronomers in the 17th century BC. |
Venus' mass is 4,867,320,000,000,000 billion kg. This is equal to 0.815 x Earth's mass. |
Next to the Moon, Venus is the brightest object in space that can be seen at night from Earth. |
The surface temperature on Venus is 462 degrees Celsius. |
There is an opaque layer of sulfuric acid clouds on Venus which makes it difficult to see its surface. |
Venus comes closer to Earth than any other planet, the closest at 38.2 million km. |
Most planets rotate anti-clockwise on their axis, but Venus rotates clockwise. Uranus is the only other planet to rotate clockwise. |
There are mountains on Venus that are higher than those on Earth. One of Venus' mountains, Maat Mons, reaches more than five miles high. |
The water bodies on Venus dried up when the sun started to emit more solar energy, taking approximately 300 million years to do so. |
Because of how slow Venus rotates, one day on Venus takes longer than a year on Earth. |
The atmospheric pressure on Venus is so great that small asteroids are crushed when they enter its atmosphere. |
The ancient Greeks called Venus Phosphorus, and Hesperus, as they believed it was two different planets due its strange orbit. |
The ancient Romans called Venus Lucifer and Vesper, also believing, like the Greeks, that Venus was actually two different planets. |
Venus is so hot, and its atmosphere so dangerous to humans, that astronauts cannot land on the surface. |
The Russians lost a space probe in 1961, after it was sent to Venus. This was the first mission to Venus. |
The United States also lost their first probe sent to Venus, called Mariner 1. |
The first man-made space craft to land on Venus was the Venera 3, which landed in 1966. |
There are four terrestrial planets in our solar system. Venus is the second largest of the four. |
There are no seasons on Venus like there are on Earth. It's always extremely hot, and because it has such a high carbon dioxide level in its atmosphere, there is a constant greenhouse effect. |
Venus has also been referred to as the Evening Star and the Morning Star, because of the early beliefs that there were actually two planets. |
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