Venus - Basic Properties, The Rotation Rate Of Venus, Venusian Surface Detail, Venusian Surface Processes, Venusian Internal Structure
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Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is in some superficial geological features like Earth. In many important geochemical features, however, it is quite different. Next to the Sun and Moon, Venus can be the brightest object in the sky. At its most brilliant, Venus is sixteen times brighter than Sirius (α Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the night sky. The extreme brilliance of Venus is partly due to its occasional closeness to Earth, and partly due to it having a highly reflective atmosphere.
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Venus orbits the Sun on a near circular orbit at mean distance of 0.723 Astronomical Units (AU). At aphelion the planet is at a maximum distance of 0.728 AU from the Sun, while at perihelion Venus it is 0.718 AU away. Coming as near as 0.272 AU, no other planet can approach the earth as close as Venus does. Since it circles the Sun in an orbit smaller than that of Earth's, Venus is never ve…
The Venusian atmosphere is both optically thick and highly reflective. The upper cloud deck has an albedo of 0.76, meaning that it reflects 76% of the sunlight that falls on it. In addition, the low-lying Venusian clouds are so dense that they completely obscure any optical view of the planet's surface. Not being able to monitor variations in surface detail has meant that astronomers have o…
At is closest approach the planet Venus can have an angular diameter just slightly larger than 1/60th of a degree. This angular size translates to a physical diameter of 7,520 mi (12,104 km), making the planet about 95% the size of Earth. Given the near similar sizes of Earth and Venus, it might be expected that the surface of Venus has been shaped by the same geological processes that operate on …
The similarity between the mass, radius, and bulk density of Venus and Earth suggests that the two planets have similar internal structure. Venus most probably has, therefore, a thin rocky crust, a large iron- and magnesium-silicate mantle, and an inner nickel-iron alloy core (~ 25% of the planet's mass). One Venusian anomaly that defies present-day theory relates to the planet's mag…
While Venus is often referred to as Earth's twin on the basis that the two planets have similar physical characteristics (radius, mass, density, composition, etc), it is far from being Earth's twin when atmospheric characteristics are compared. The many spacecraft that have flown past, or landed on, the Venusian surface have found that the uppermost cloud tops, which obscure Earth-ba…
Astronomers began to suspect that the surface of Venus was a decidedly inhospitable place when radio telescope measurements, made in the 1950s, indicated surface temperatures as high as 750K (891°F; 477°C). It is believed that a greenhouse effect is responsible for maintaining the high surface temperature on Venus. A greenhouse effect occurs whenever incoming sunlight warms the plane…
Venus' atmosphere protects the surface from smaller objects that would otherwise impact the surface if the atmosphere were thinner. Smaller objects, especially those under 0.6 mi (1 km) in diameter are largely broken up in the atmosphere and do not directly impact the surface. For this reason and due to Venus' high volcanic resurfacing rate, rather few impact craters on Venus are kno…
Venus has two alternative histories, depending upon how one views the age of the extensive resurfacing volcanic lavas. In the "catastrophic" model of Venus history, there was a huge resurfacing event in Venus' history about 200 to 700 million years ago, probably due to rather sudden solidification of the interior of the planet. Vast volcanic features of about the same age favo…
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