Venus

Actually, the planet Mercury has the same behavior of being visible at dawn and at dusk. However, it can only be observed during a few weeks in a year. Since Venus is much larger and closer to earth, it has earned the title.

Because of its proximity to the sun, Venus is always found on the same side of the sky. If the sun is just setting to the west, the “star” can only be found at the west too. Its sulfuric acid clouds are highly reflective, causing it to glow brightly.

Venus is usually called the earth’s twin in terms of size, composition and gravitational pull. However, the atmosphere of the Evening Star is too hostile for life to exist. The atmospheric pressure on its surface is about 90 times greater than the earth’s. The air is also mostly carbon dioxide.

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Terrestrial planets have similar structures – a core composed of heavy metals which is usually iron, solid surfaces of craters, canyons, mountains and volcanoes and secondary atmospheres (generated through volcanic activity and comet impacts), as opposed to the gas giants which has primary atmospheres (captured directly from the original nebula). Note that while the moon has similar structure, it doesn't have an iron core. Plutoids are also similar to terrestrial planets in that they have solid surfaces; but instead or rocky surfaces, they are composed of icy materials.

Mercury is one dense planet composed of iron and nickel, with a very thin atmosphere. Venus has a thick atmosphere, mostly of carbon dioxide, which causes a greenhouse effect. Earth has the highest density among these planets with an atmosphere composed of elements that are conducive for human habitation and Mars has a rocky red surface and a thin atmosphere. Note that among these 4, only Earth and Mars has moons; Earth has one and Mars has two). Extra-solar terrestrial planets are the subject of much interest, as people naturally want to know of the existence of other planets that are habitable for humans, or for the theoretical extraterrestrial beings.

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Venus

But why is it named after Venus when it actually looks hellish? The answer to that question would be because it is known to have similar qualities to that of Earths’ surface. Volcanoes on Venus are similar to the Earth’s, however, some scientists believe that because the temperature on the planet rose so high up, the tectonic plates stop moving and these plates should have formed the cone or crater shapes the volcanoes on Venus should have that is why the magma on its surface just form a sea like body.

Even though Mercury is closer to the sun, Venus, who only gets 25% of heat from the Sun than Mercury, has a hotter surface. Even among the inner planets, Venus, has the highest level of density and pressure. On its surface, the pressure would feel like someone is one kilometre below sea level on Earth. It’s not survivable even if you disregard the heat from the planet. In our Solar System, Venus is said to have the highest greenhouse effect. Not only is it called the sister planet of the Earth because they have similarities in size and mass but because it is believed that before the Greenhouse effect on the planet took over, Venus’ atmosphere was almost similar to that of Earth’s.

Surface of Venus

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Venus

The Babylonians provide the earliest record of observing this planet at around 1581 BC; the Persians in 1032 made a record of the Transit of Venus. Given the designation of the “morning star” & “evening star”, the Greeks had initially thought that these were two separate stars when in fact it was only one.

Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are also visible through the naked eye, making them planets just like Venus—discovered during the pre-historic times. Venus was actually the “morning star” and the “evening star.” The people back then didn’t know that the morning start and evening star is, in fact, just one object.

However, there are recorded early objections on the planet, observations that even pre-date the ones made by Galileo Galilee and Nicolas Copernicus (the one who first saw the planets through a telescope and the one who hypothesized that the planets revolve around the Sun, respectively).

Among the first correct Venus observations was that of Pythagoras’, the Greek philosopher credited for the Pythagorean Theorem (a mathematical—specifically a geometrical—concept). Pythagoras observed that the so-called morning and evening stars were in fact the same. Meanwhile, Avicenna, a foremost Persian philosopher, observed that Venus is not closer to the Sun but to the Earth (an observation that isn’t true, as everyone knows).

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Venus

According to a theory, the Earth’s moon was caused when an object with a mass similar to that of Mars impacted the Earth many years ago. This caused a fragment of the Earth to hurl into orbit and with the debris from the large impacting object, eventually formed the moon. It follows that Venus should have a moon because of its similarity to Earth.

There are several theories that might explain the non-existence of Venus’s natural satellite:

• One theory suggests that Venus experienced an impact similar to Earth. However, the gravity of Venus was not able to hold on to the fragmented piece that drifted into space. A similar theory suggests that Venus did have a moon once but it escaped the gravity pull of the planet.
• Since Venus is close to the Sun, it is possible that the gravity of the Sun affected its satellite, causing it to escape Venus’s influence.
• David Stevenson, a CalTech professor, and Alex Alemi, a CalTech student, proposed that an object collided with Venus many years ago, which created a moon. However, another impact event caused the change in Venus’s rotation that also explains the inverse rotation of the planet. Due to the slow and inverted rotation of the planet, it caused a moon linked to Venus, it started moving towards the planet. This then resulted to Venus reabsorbing its natural satellite.

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The size of Venus including its chemistry and the types of materials present within it are almost similar to that of the Earth. However, even if they have several similar features, planet Venus is different in a way that it is considered as a deadly world. The temperature of its surface is too hot that anyone may be able to cook meals within minutes and there is no place within the planet to hide from such heat.

Because planet Venus’ surface cannot be seen visually, a lot of things may still be undiscovered about the planet. But today, with the use of special instruments by scientists, a lot of things are discovered from this planet. One fact is that Venus appears very similar to our home planet but because it lies very close to the sun, events caused the planet to have its fiery existence. It is also discovered that Venus is without an ozone layer, which causes the direct penetration of ultraviolet radiation coming from the sun to the planet’s atmosphere. This results to the fact that at present, planet Venus has been left with a little amount of water.

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Since it is a bright planet, people from the ancient civilizations made observations on Venus. Like Mercury, people actually thought that it was a star; in fact, people thought Venus was two stars. It was corrected by Pythagoras, the famous Greek philosopher credited for the Pythagorean Theorem, who recognized that the so-called stars were just one object. Other discoveries were centered on Venus’ distance and appearance. Avicenna observed the planet’s transit and realized that it is closer to the Sun than the Earth. Ibn Bajjah also saw Venus’ transit together with Mercury.

But the very first thorough study with the knowledge that Venus is a planet just like Earth is that of Galileo Galilee’s. During his observation, he saw Venus in a half-lit phase when away from the Sun and in the full phase when it is close to the Sun—something that could only be possible if the planet, in fact, orbited the Sun. This observation is among the first ones to prove that the Earth is not the center of the Solar System.

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Venus’ atmosphere

Venus’ atmosphere circulates and rotates around its surface at a very fast rate. It takes the atmosphere four earth days to circle the planet. The winds that help rotate the atmosphere can go as fast as 100 m/s. The speed of the wind becomes slower when the surface decreases in elevation. Anticyclone-like structures known as polar vortexes are located on Venus’ poles. The Vortex has two eyes and is shaped like the letter S.

Venus does not have a magnetic field. What separates outer space and solar winds from the atmosphere of Venus is its ionosphere. Venus does have an induced magnetosphere. This is created because the solar magnetic sphere is excluded by the ionized layer. Solar wind blows lighter gasses such as water vapor by the magnetotail. It has been speculated that
Venus’ atmosphere was once similar to that of earth. Venus even had liquid water on its surface. The greenhouse effect is speculated to have evaporated the water and caused a rise in the greenhouse gases in Venus’ atmosphere. Venus’ upper atmosphere is the most similar to that of earth. Because of this coupled with the fact that oxygen and nitrogen exists in abundance in the planet, colonization is something that scientists may look into in the far away future.

Exploring the Venusian Atmosphere

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The reason Venus is so hot and has no temperature variations is its atmosphere. The atmosphere of the planet is nearly 96% carbon dioxide and 4% nitrogen, as well as being 90 times denser than that of Earth, resulting in a runaway greenhouse effect in which energy from the Sun is trapped on the surface of the planet. A contributory factor is the Venus’s very slight axial tilt, just 2.7° compared with Earth’s 23.4°, meaning that it receives the same amount of energy from the Sun no matter what time of year it is. The atmosphere is also covered in clouds made up of sulfuric acid and other corrosive substances, as well as having powerful winds with speeds reaching over 100 meters per second.

However, Venus was not always this hot. Many scientists even believe that at one time, Venus was like Earth, with liquid oceans and plate tectonics. But it is unclear why the runaway greenhouse effect happened on Venus. One theory is that the brightness of the early Sun caused an increase of water vapor in the atmosphere, causing an increase in temperature and the oceans to eventually boil until all its water vapor entered the atmosphere. The weak carbon recycling cycle on Venus may also have contributed to carbon dioxide becoming the dominant gas in the atmosphere.

Additional Facts about Venus

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Of all the terrestrial planets, Venus has the densest atmosphere of all and it is composed of carbon dioxide, because of the fact that it has no carbon cycle to help put the carbon back into its rocks and surface features as well as lacking the organic life to absorb it.

Scientists believe that a younger Venus used to have oceans that are similar to the Earth’s but have since totally evaporated as the temperatures in the planet continuously rose thus leaving it pretty much desert-like, dusty and dry. The water is believed to have dissociated and since the planet lacks a magnetic field, the hydrogen was then swept into space by solar winds.

The planet, after being mapped by Project Magellan in 1991 and 1992 showed extensive volcanism as well as sulfur in its atmosphere which indicates some recent eruptions. Venus also has a few impact craters which shows that the surface of the planet is still pretty young, roughly half a billion years old.

Venus – The Deadliest Planet

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