Venus is the second planet from the Sun.

It is a rocky planet with the densest atmosphere of all the

rocky bodies in the Solar System, and the only one with a mass and size that is close to that of its
orbital neighbour Earth. Orbiting inferiorly (inside of Earth's orbit), it appears in Earth's sky always
close to the Sun, as either a "morning star" or an "evening star". While this is also true for Mercury,
Venus appears much more prominently, since it is the third brightest object in Earth's sky after
the Moon and the Sun,[20][21] appearing brighter than any other star-like classical planet or any fixed
star. With such prominence in Earth's sky, Venus has historically been a common and important
object for humans, in both their cultures and astronomy.

Venus has a weak induced magnetosphere and an especially thick carbon dioxide atmosphere,
which creates, together with its global sulfuric acid cloud cover, an extreme greenhouse effect. This
results at the surface in a mean temperature of 737 K (464 °C; 867 °F) and a crushing pressure of
92 times that of Earth's at sea level, turning the air into a supercritical fluid, while at cloudy altitudes
of 50 km (30 mi) above the surface, the pressure, temperature and radiation are very much like at
Earth's surface. Conditions possibly favourable for life on Venus have been identified at its cloud
layers, with recent research having found indicative, but not convincing, evidence of life on the
planet. Venus may have had liquid surface water early in its history, possibly enough to form oceans,
but runaway greenhouse effects eventually evaporated any water, which then was taken into
space by the solar wind.[22][23][24] Internally, Venus is thought to consist of a core, mantle, and crust, the
latter releasing internal heat through its active volcanism, shaping the surface with large
resurfacing instead of plate tectonics. Venus is one of two planets in the Solar System which have
no moons.[25] Nonetheless, studies published on 26 October 2023 suggest that Venus may have
had plate tectonics during ancient times, and, as a result, may have had a more habitable
environment, and possibly one capable of life forms.[26][27]

Venus has a rotation which has been slowed and turned against its orbital direction (retrograde) by
the strong currents and drag of its atmosphere. This rotation produces, together with the time of
224.7 Earth days it takes Venus to complete an orbit around the Sun (a Venusian solar year), a
Venusian solar day length of 117 Earth days, resulting in a Venusian year being just under two
Venusian days long. The orbits of Venus and Earth are the closest between any two Solar System
planets, approaching each other in synodic periods of 1.6 years. While this allows them to come
closer to each other at inferior conjunction than any other pair of Solar System planets, Mercury
stays on average closer to them and any other planet, as Mercury is the most central planet and
passes by most frequently.[28] That said, Venus and Earth between them have the lowest difference
in gravitational potential of any pair of Solar System planets. This has allowed Venus to be the
most accessible destination and attractive gravity assist waypoint for interplanetary flights.

In 1961, Venus became the target of the first interplanetary flight in human history, followed by many
essential interplanetary firsts like the first soft landing on another planet in 1970. These probes made
it evident that extreme greenhouse effects have created oppressive surface conditions, an insight
that has crucially informed predictions about global warming on Earth.[29][30] This finding stopped most
attention towards theories and the then popular science fiction about Venus being a habitable or
inhabited planet. Crewed flights to Venus have been suggested nevertheless, either to flyby Venus,
performing a gravity assist for reaching Mars faster and safer, or to enter the Venusian atmosphere
and stay aloft at altitudes with conditions more comparable to Earth's surface, except atmospheric
composition, than anywhere else in the Solar System. Contemporarily, Venus has again gained
interest as a case for research into particularly the development of Earth-like planets and their
habitability.

Physical characteristics
 Venus to scale among the terrestrial planets of the Solar System,
which are arranged by the order of their Inner Solar System orbits outward from the Sun (from
left: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars)

Venus is one of the four terrestrial planets in the Solar System, meaning that it is a rocky body like
Earth. It is similar to Earth in size and mass and is often described as Earth's "sister" or "twin".
[31]
Venus is close to spherical due to its slow rotation.[32] Venus has a diameter of 12,103.6 km
(7,520.8 mi)—only 638.4 km (396.7 mi) less than Earth's—and its mass is 81.5% of Earth's.
Conditions on the Venusian surface differ radically from those on Earth because its
dense atmosphere is 96.5% carbon dioxide, with most of the remaining 3.5% being nitrogen.[33] The
surface pressure is 9.3 megapascals (93 bars), and the average surface temperature is 737 K
(464 °C; 867 °F), above the critical points of both major constituents and making the surface
atmosphere a supercritical fluid out of mainly supercritical carbon dioxide and some supercritical
nitrogen.

Atmosphere and climate

Main article: Atmosphere of Venus

Cloud structure of the Venusian atmosphere, made visible

through ultraviolet imaging

Venus has a dense atmosphere composed of 96.5% carbon dioxide, 3.5% nitrogen—both exist as
supercritical fluids at the planet's surface with a 6.5% density of water[34]—and traces of other gases
including sulfur dioxide.[35] The mass of its atmosphere is 92 times that of Earth's, whereas the
pressure at its surface is about 93 times that at Earth's—a pressure equivalent to that at a depth of
nearly 1 km (5⁄8 mi) under Earth's oceans. The density at the surface is 65 kg/m3 (4.1 lb/cu ft), 6.5%
that of water[34] or 50 times as dense as Earth's atmosphere at 293 K (20 °C; 68 °F) at sea level.
The CO2-rich atmosphere generates the strongest greenhouse effect in the Solar System, creating
surface temperatures of at least 735 K (462 °C; 864 °F).[36][37] This makes the Venusian surface hotter
than Mercury's, which has a minimum surface temperature of 53 K (−220 °C; −364 °F) and
maximum surface temperature of 700 K (427 °C; 801 °F),[38][39] even though Venus is nearly twice
Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance. Because
of its runaway greenhouse effect, Venus has been identified by scientists such as Carl Sagan as a
warning and research object linked to climate change on Earth.[29][30]
 Venus Temperature[40]

Surface
Type
Temperature

Maximum 900 °F (482 °C)

Normal 847 °F (453 °C)

Minimum 820 °F (438 °C)

Venus's atmosphere is rich in primordial noble gases compared to that of Earth.[41] This enrichment
indicates an early divergence from Earth in evolution. An unusually large comet impact[42] or accretion
of a more massive primary atmosphere from solar nebula[43] have been proposed to explain the
enrichment. However, the atmosphere is depleted of radiogenic argon, a proxy for mantle
degassing, suggesting an early shutdown of major magmatism.[44][45]

Studies have suggested that billions of years ago, Venus's atmosphere could have been much more
like the one surrounding the early Earth, and that there may have been substantial quantities of
liquid water on the surface.[46][47][48] After a period of 600 million to several billion years,[49] solar
forcing from rising luminosity of the Sun and possibly large volcanic resurfacing caused the
evaporation of the original water and the current atmosphere.[50] A runaway greenhouse effect was
created once a critical level of greenhouse gases (including water) was added to its atmosphere.
[51]
Although the surface conditions on Venus are no longer hospitable to any Earth-like life that may
have formed before this event, there is speculation on the possibility that life exists in the upper
cloud layers of Venus, 50 km (30 mi) up from the surface, where the atmospheric conditions are the
most Earth-like in the Solar System,[52] with temperatures ranging between 303 and 353 K (30 and
80 °C; 86 and 176 °F), and the pressure and radiation being about the same as at Earth's surface,
but with acidic clouds and the carbon dioxide air.[53][54][55] The putative detection of an absorption
line of phosphine in Venus's atmosphere, with no known pathway for abiotic production, led to
speculation in September 2020 that there could be extant life currently present in the atmosphere.[56]
[57]
Later research attributed the spectroscopic signal that was interpreted as phosphine to sulfur
dioxide,[58] or found that in fact there was no absorption line.[59][60]
 Types of cloud layers, as well as temperature and pressure change
by altitude in the atmosphere

Thermal inertia and the transfer of heat by winds in the lower atmosphere mean that the temperature
of Venus's surface does not vary significantly between the planet's two hemispheres, those facing
and not facing the Sun, despite Venus's slow rotation. Winds at the surface are slow, moving at a
few kilometres per hour, but because of the high density of the atmosphere at the surface, they exert
a significant amount of force against obstructions, and transport dust and small stones across the
surface. This alone would make it difficult for a human to walk through, even without the heat,
pressure, and lack of oxygen.[61]

Above the dense CO2 layer are thick clouds, consisting mainly of sulfuric acid, which is formed by
sulfur dioxide and water through a chemical reaction resulting in sulfuric acid hydrate. Additionally,
the clouds consist of approximately 1% ferric chloride.[62][63] Other possible constituents of the cloud
particles are ferric sulfate, aluminium chloride and phosphoric anhydride. Clouds at different levels
have different compositions and particle size distributions.[62] These clouds reflect, similar to thick
cloud cover on Earth,[64] about 70% of the sunlight that falls on them back into space,[65] and since
they cover the whole planet they prevent visual observation of Venus's surface. The permanent
cloud cover means that although Venus is closer than Earth to the Sun, it receives less sunlight on
the ground, with only 10% of the received sunlight reaching the surface,[66] resulting in average
daytime levels of illumination at the surface of 14,000 lux, comparable to that on Earth "in the
daytime with overcast clouds".[67] Strong 300 km/h (185 mph) winds at the cloud tops go around
Venus about every four to five Earth days.[68] Winds on Venus move at up to 60 times the speed of its
rotation, whereas Earth's fastest winds are only 10–20% rotation speed.[69]

The surface of Venus is effectively isothermal; it retains a constant temperature not only between the
two hemispheres but between the equator and the poles.[4][70] Venus's minute axial tilt—less than 3°,
compared to 23° on Earth—also minimises seasonal temperature variation.[71] Altitude is one of the
few factors that affect Venusian temperatures. The highest point on Venus, Maxwell Montes, is
therefore the coolest point on Venus, with a temperature of about 655 K (380 °C; 715 °F) and an
atmospheric pressure of about 4.5 MPa (45 bar).[72][73] In 1995, the Magellan spacecraft imaged a
highly reflective substance at the tops of the highest mountain peaks, a "Venus snow" that bore a
strong resemblance to terrestrial snow. This substance likely formed from a similar process to snow,
albeit at a far higher temperature. Too volatile to condense on the surface, it rose in gaseous form to
higher elevations, where it is cooler and could precipitate. The identity of this substance is not known
with certainty, but speculation has ranged from elemental tellurium to lead sulfide (galena).[74]

Although Venus has no seasons, in 2019, astronomers identified a cyclical variation in sunlight
absorption by the atmosphere, possibly caused by opaque, absorbing particles susp