So last time we have studied about the planet Mercury, if you miss that one here is the link to go with.This time we are here to discuss about Venus planet, its physical characteristics, atmosphere, orbit and many more.So lets begin...

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Venus is the second planet from Sun and closest to Earth. It orbits around the Sun from a distance of 108.2 million killometer with average orbital speed of 35.02 kilometer per second and takes around 224 days to complete it.While it takes around 243 days to complete one rotation along its axis, rising the fact that one day(243 days ) on Venus is more than its one year (224 days ). Also unlike to most other planets it rotates in opposite direction, resulting in sunrise from west and sunset on east to an observer on its surface. It can be seen on night as a second most bright natural object after moon in sky.Like mercury it also not have any its own satellite.It is named after Roman goddess of love and beauty.

Author:-NASA/ (Public domain)

Venus has a very thick layer of atmosphere and high surface pressure of 92 bar. It is the hottest planet of the solar system, because of green house effect of carbon-dioxide gas the heat remains entrap on its surface.The temperature of Venus is around 460 degree celsius, which is enough to melt the lead metal. The atmosphere of Venus consists mainly the gases like carbon-dioxide (96.5%) and nitrogen (3.5%),with traces of sulphur dioxide, argon, water vapours, helium, neon etc.The mass of Venus atmosphere is about 90 times that of the Earth's atmosphere, which shows how much dense atnosphere of Venus is.Above the thick layer of carbon-dioxide , Venus consists sulphuric acid clouds, formed by the reaction of sulphur dioxide and water.These clouds reflect and scatter about 90% of the sunlight.The clouds of Venus are so opaque that they block our view to the surface of Venus.These clouds rain sulphuric acid . The rain never reaches the ground, because high temperature evaporates the sulphuric acid drops back into clouds, which also results in permanent clouds on Venus.Venus's atmosphere has also detected lightning by the Soviet Venera probes and later confirmed by ESA's Venus express spacecraft in 2006-07.

In ancient times, Venus was often called with evening star and morning star and was supposed to be two different stars called as Phosphorus and Hesperus. It is called so because it can be seen immediately after sunset and before sunrise..

Venus and Earth both are called as Twin brothers because of their similar size, mass, composition and gravity.It is mainly a terrestrial planet, whose 2/3 surface is covered by flat, smooth plains that are found by thousands of valcanoes (some of which are still active today). Remaining 1/3 surface of Venus is covered by six mountainous regions. One mountain range called Maxwell is about 870 kilometer long and reaches upto 11.3 kilometer high and regarded as highest structure of the planet.

Here is the 3-D perspective view of its surface:-

Author:- NASA- Jet propulsion laboratory (public domain)

If compared to Earth , its diameter is 12,103.6 kilometer which is only 638.4 kilometer less than Earth's diameter and hass a mass of kilogram which makes around 81.5% of Earth's mass.The surface of Venus is supposed to be isothermal, because temperature remains constant during day as well as night.

The internal structure of Venus is supposed to similar to Earth i.e. consists of core, mantle and crust as shown below:-

Author:-Mungany (public domain)

But we doesn't know much about its internal structure becuase of lack of knowledge about its moment of Inertia.

Venus was the first planet to be visited by a spacecraft Mariner 2 probe in 1962. After that many spacecrafts like Mariner, Pioner venus, Venera, Vega passed and many more landed on the surface of Venus. The Soviets made about 10 successful landings, gathering data and analysing samples.In 1989 the US probe Megellan took images of mire than 90% of its surface. Till now planet is explored by different spacecrafts.

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References:-

• (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus)

• (https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/overview/)

• (https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/amp.space.com/44-venus-second-planet-from-the-sun-brightest-planet-in-solar-system.html)

• (https://www.universetoday.com/14146/atmosphere-of-venus/)

Thanks for Reading