Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It has a day that is longer than its year! A year on Venus lasts about 225 Earth days. But a single day on Venus is even longer, taking about 243 Earth days. This means the Sun only rises twice during each Venusian year.

Venus is a terrestrial planet. This means it has a solid, rocky surface, much like Earth. People have known about Venus for thousands of years. The ancient Romans named it after their goddess Venus. Venus is the brightest object in the night sky, besides the Moon. It is sometimes called the morning star or the evening star. This is because you can easily see it just before sunrise or just after sunset. Venus gets closer to Earth than any other planet.

Venus is sometimes called Earth's sister planet. This is because they are similar in size and gravity. However, in many other ways, they are very different. Venus's atmosphere (air) is mostly carbon dioxide. It also has thick clouds made of sulphuric acid. Sulphuric acid is a chemical that is very poisonous to humans.

The thick atmosphere makes it hard to see Venus's surface. For a long time, people wondered if anything could live there. The pressure on Venus's surface is 92 times stronger than on Earth. Imagine being crushed by that much pressure! Venus has no moons. It also spins very slowly on its axis. And it spins in the opposite direction compared to most other planets.

What is Venus Like?
How Venus Moves in Space
Exploring Venus
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What is Venus Like?

Radar view of the surface of Venus taken by the Magellan spacecraft.

Venus is a terrestrial planet, so its surface is made of rock, just like Earth. But Venus is much, much hotter than Earth. All the carbon dioxide in its atmosphere acts like a thick blanket. This blanket traps heat from the Sun. This effect is called the greenhouse effect, and it is super strong on Venus.

Because of this, Venus's surface is the hottest of any planet in our Solar System. The average temperature is about 462 °C (864 °F). This is hot enough to melt metals like lead or zinc!

Venus's Surface and Landforms

Venus has no oceans because it is far too hot for water to exist as a liquid. Its surface is a dry desert. Because of the thick clouds, scientists can only map the surface using radar. About 80% of Venus is covered by smooth, rocky plains. These plains are mostly made of a rock called basalt.

There are two higher areas that are like continents. One is in the north and is called Ishtar Terra. The other is in the south and is called Aphrodite Terra. They are named after ancient goddesses of love. The surface of Venus looks like it has been shaped by volcanic activity. Venus has many volcanoes. Scientists think the surface of Venus is between 300 and 600 million years old.

Venus's Atmosphere

Venus's atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas. It also has clouds of sulphuric acid. Because the atmosphere is so thick, the pressure is very high. It's 92 times the pressure on Earth. This is enough to crush many things!

You cannot see the planet's surface from space. This is because the thick cloud layer reflects 60% of the sunlight that hits it. Scientists use special infrared and ultraviolet cameras and radar to see through the clouds.

Scientists believe that billions of years ago, Venus's atmosphere might have been like Earth's. There may have been a lot of water on Venus's surface. But over time, the water evaporated. This created many greenhouse gases in its atmosphere, leading to the extreme greenhouse effect we see today.

Magnetic Field of Venus

In 1967, a spacecraft called Venera 4 found that Venus's magnetic field is much weaker than Earth's. This magnetic field is created by the way Venus's ionosphere interacts with the solar wind. Venus's magnetic field is not strong enough to protect its atmosphere from harmful cosmic rays.

Transit of Venus

Transit of Venus Sometimes, Venus can be seen passing directly between the Sun and Earth. When this happens, Venus looks like a small black dot moving across the Sun. These events are called "transits." Transits of Venus happen in pairs, eight years apart. After a pair, it's more than a hundred years until the next one!

How Venus Moves in Space

Orbit of Venus

Orbit of Venus compared to the orbit of the Earth.

Venus orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 108 million kilometers (67 million miles). It takes about 224.7 Earth days to complete one orbit. Venus spins very slowly. In fact, a single day on Venus is longer than its entire year!

Exploring Venus

A model of the Venera 1 spacecraft at the Memorial Museum of Astronautics in Moscow.

The first robotic space probe mission to Venus was part of the Soviet Venera program in 1961. This was the first time a spacecraft was sent to any planet. The United States had its first successful mission to Venus with Mariner 2 on December 14, 1962. This was the world's first successful interplanetary mission. Mariner 2 flew about 34,833 kilometers (21,644 miles) above Venus and collected data about its atmosphere.

On October 18, 1967, the Soviet Venera 4 successfully entered Venus's atmosphere. It sent back information that showed the surface temperature was much hotter than expected, almost 500 °C (932 °F). It also found that the atmosphere was 95% carbon dioxide and much denser than scientists thought. Data from Venera 4 and the American Mariner 5 were even shared and analyzed by scientists from both countries.

A plaque from the Mariner 5 spacecraft.

Venera 7 was the first space probe to land on Venus. However, it was destroyed by the harsh conditions on Venus after only 23 minutes. In 1974, Mariner 10 flew past Venus on its way to Mercury. It took ultraviolet pictures of the clouds, showing incredibly fast winds in Venus's atmosphere.

In 1975, the Soviet Venera 9 and 10 landers sent back the first black and white images from Venus's surface. Later, in 1982, Venera 13 and 14 sent back the first color images.

NASA also gathered more data in 1978 with the Pioneer Venus project. This project included two missions: the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe. The successful Soviet Venera program ended in October 1983. Venera 15 and 16 were placed in orbit to map about 25% of Venus's surface in detail.

Several other spacecraft flew past Venus in the 1980s and 1990s. These missions helped us learn even more about Venus. They included Vega 1 (1985), Vega 2 (1985), Galileo (1990), Magellan (1994), Cassini–Huygens (1998), and MESSENGER (2006).

Then, the Venus Express spacecraft from the European Space Agency (ESA) entered orbit around Venus in April 2006. It had seven science tools and provided long-term observations of Venus's atmosphere. ESA finished this mission in December 2014.

As of 2016, Japan's Akatsuki is in orbit around Venus. It arrived on December 7, 2015. Also, space agencies like Roscosmos, NASA, and India's ISRO are studying ideas for future missions to Venus.

In 2016, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program looked into a rover called the Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments. This rover is designed to survive for a long time in Venus's harsh conditions. It would be controlled by a mechanical computer and powered by wind.

List of planets

Images for kids

Size comparison with Earth
False-colour image of Maat Mons
Impact craters on the surface of Venus (false-colour image reconstructed from radar data)
The internal structure of Venus – the crust (outer layer), the mantle (middle layer) and the core (yellow inner layer)
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and orbits the Sun approximately 1.6 times (yellow trail) in Earth's 365 days (blue trail)
Venus is always brighter than all other planets or stars as seen from Earth. The second brightest object in the image is Jupiter
The phases of Venus and evolution of its apparent diameter
Moon (left) and Venus (right)
180-degree panorama of Venus's surface from the Soviet Venera 9 lander 1975
Modern telescopic view of Venus from Earth's surface
Global view of Venus in ultraviolet light done by Mariner 10
Artist's impression of Galileo's flyby to planet Venus in 1990
Image from Magellan Venus Mission Radar mapping of the planet Venus, depicting the crater Mariko
Mariner 2
Venera 4
Mariner 5
Venera 9
Venera 10
Stamps of Venera 13 and Venera 14