Venus

Venus, which has no moon, is only slightly smaller than Earth and—after the Sun and the Moon—the brightest celestial body in the sky. It can be seen not only at twilight as the evening or morning star, but sometimes even during the day.

Venus orbits the Sun in a nearly circular path at a distance of about 108 million km, completing one orbit in 225 days. Since, like Mercury, it moves within Earth’s orbit around the Sun, its angular separation from the Sun in the sky—as seen from Earth—remains quite small (a maximum of 47 degrees).

The planet takes 243 days to complete one full rotation on its axis—18 days longer than its orbital period. It is noteworthy that the planet’s rotation and orbital motion occur in opposite directions.

The gentle glow of the planet named after the Roman goddess of love is deceptive. Beneath an impenetrable, dense cloud cover—which allows only 2% of the incoming sunlight to reach the surface—lies a veritable inferno. Sulfuric acid rains down from the clouds, and the temperature of the extremely dense greenhouse atmosphere—consisting almost entirely of carbon dioxide—exceeds 450 °C. The atmospheric pressure at the surface is almost as high as the pressure at a depth of 900 meters underwater on Earth. The first image of the surface was provided by the Magellan space probe, which scanned and precisely mapped the planet using radar waves between 1989 and 1994.

Data Overview

Surface

A rocky planet with many volcanoes

Number of moons

Mass

0.815 Earth masses

Diameter

12,104 km (scale: 2.7 mm)

Distance from the Sun

At perihelion: 107.41 million km
(scale: 23.9 m)
At aphelion: 108.91 million km
(model: 24.2 m)

Turnaround time

224 days, 16 hours, 49 minutes

Distance traveled in 24 hours

At perihelion: 3.046 million km
(Model: 68 cm)
At aphelion: 3.005 million km
(Model: 67 cm)

Rotation Duration

243 days, 0 hours, 36 minutes

Rotation Axis Tilt

177.4 degrees

Direction of rotation

reverse (opposite to the track's direction of travel)

Average Energy Irradiance

2,615 watts/m²

Mean Solar Angular Diameter

0.74 degrees

Temperature

Minimum temperature: 437 °C
Average temperature: 464 °C
Maximum temperature: 497 °C

Atmosphere

96.5% carbon dioxide (CO₂)
3.50% nitrogen (N₂)
0.015% sulfur dioxide (SO₂)

Weather

extreme heat, minimal temperature fluctuations

First Probe Mission

1961 Venera 1 Space Probe (Soviet Union)