Often called Earth's "sister" planet, Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is the sixth largest in the Solar System. It has no significant magnetic field and no satellites.
Venus spins very slowly in comparison to us - one day is the same as 243 days on Earth. However, it circles the Sun in less time than this, making a Venus year 224 days. In addition Venus spins the opposite way to us, which would mean the Sun rising in the West and setting in the East. Venus is a similar size to Earth, but is closer to a perfect sphere than our planet.
The atmosphere surrounding Venus is incredibly dense and is made up predominantly of carbon dioxide. The pressure on the surface of the planet is immense and is about 100 times that of Earth. As well as carbon dioxide, which makes up about 96% of the composition, Venus' atmosphere has had some other gases detected - hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid were discovered in 1967, carbon monoxide was noticed in 1968, water in 1972, and sulphuric acid was found six years later. In addition small amounts of oxygen, argon and neon have been detected too.
Venus is covered in a mass of clouds which are thought to be a couple of miles thick and made up of sulphuric acid. These clouds move in both East and West directions, but move extremely fast - about three times faster than hurricane winds. In one examination at least four distinct cloud and haze layers were found at different levels.
There has been quite a lot of research into the presence of thunder and lightning on Venus. Many researchers believe the activity they see is similar to what we experience on Earth. They think the storms possibly occur in the afternoon, like here, and is probably related to clouds on the surface. There are some experts though who stress that not all the activity is related to thunder and lightning, but possibly due to something else entirely - one suggestion is that it could be related to volcanic activity.
Venus has only very weak winds near the surface (just a couple of miles per hour), however at higher altitudes, near the tops of the clouds, they believe the winds reach speeds of around 220mph. For an unexplained reason, evidence shows the solar winds are disturbed quite notably as they flow past the planet.
Temperatures on Venus are quite extreme - at the surface they are hot enough to melt lead - 484C! This is because a significant amount of sunlight reaches the surface. Venus is in fact hotter than Mercury, even though it is twice as far away from the Sun.
It is thought that at one time Venus had seas, similar to on Earth, however there are none now and it is believed they probably boiled away due to the extreme heat. The planet has been studied for quite some time now, both from Earth via telescopes and by explorations in space. The similarities with Earth make things interesting, because if we were any closer to the Sun, similar affects could have occurred to our planet.
Venus is visible with the naked eye from Earth - it appears as the brightest "star" in the sky.
Related Articles:
- Mercury weather
- Venus weather
- Mars weather
- Saturn weather
- Uranus weather
- Neptune weather
- Pluto weather
