What is Venus Like?
Venus is the second planet from the sun. It is 107 million km away from the sun. You can see Venus shining low in the western sky at night. It looks like a very bright star. Venus is not a star. It does not make its own light. It reflects light from the sun. It is the brightest object in the night sky except for the moon. It is so bright because its thick clouds reflect the sun’s light like a mirror.
Venus is sometimes called Earth’s twin. This is because Venus and Earth are almost the same size. They weigh about the same and are made of the same material. Because Venus is about the same size as Earth, gravity is close to the same on both planets. If you weigh 70 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 63 pounds on Venus. However, Venus and Earth are also very different.
Venus has no moons. It is a dry, hot planet. It’s average temperature is 449 °C. Venus is covered with thick, yellow clouds. Strong winds blow all the time. Venus does not have life. Venus does not have water oceans like Earth does. Venus, like Earth, has active volcanoes that erupt lava onto its surface.
A planet’s day is the time it takes the planet to rotate or spin once on its axis. Venus rotates much more slowly than Earth does, so a day on Venus is much longer than a day on Earth. A day on Venus is 243 Earth days. Venus also rotates backwards compared to the Earth and most of the other planets. Venus rotates from east to west, while Earth rotates from west to east. If you could land on Venus, you would see the sun rise in the west and set in the east!
Venus also orbits the sun in the opposite direction that most of our planets orbit. The only other planet that orbits in the opposite direction is Uranus. A planet’s year is the time it takes the planet to make one complete orbit around the sun. A year on Venus is 225 Earth-days long. Actually, a day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus!
(Information taken from edhelper.com and Astronomy For Kids websites)
KEY FACTS
1 orbit of Sun (year): 225 Earth-days long
1 rotation (day): 243 Earth-days
Distance from Sun: 107 million km
Diameter: 12, 100 km
Average Temperature: 449 °C
Atmosphere: thick yellow clouds, strong winds
Surface: is dry, covered in mountains, volcanoes, craters and plains
Natural Satellites (moons): 0
Ring System: no
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