15 Facts about Venus: The Burning Queen

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Venus ( ♀︎, शुक्र ), the only planet of our Solar System regarded as a female is the evil twin sister of our planet. This shiny morning star is a hell with a raging temperature, crushing pressure and acidic clouds. Venus is a perfect example to show what the greenhouse effect can do to a planet.

Here are some interesting facts about the gruesome Venus:

 

The two continents on the planet are also named after women. The Northern continent Ishtar Terra is named after the Babylonian goddess of love and southern continent Aphrodite Terra is named after the Greek goddess of love

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Due to its reverse rotation, Sun rises in the west and sets in the East

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The diameter of Venus is only 638.4 km less than Earth‘s and its mass is 81.5% of that of Earth’s mass

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This results in reduced heat loss from the planet, preventing it from cooling and providing a likely explanation for its lack of an internally generated magnetic field

Appendix: Subduction

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Due to the opaque atmosphere, Venus’s surface is not visible from space in visible light

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The high temperature on Venus is the result of the runaway greenhouse effect due to the presence of a high amount of CO₂

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This is not because Venus is more volcanically active than Earth but because its crust is older

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For comparison, the maximum depth record wearing diving suit with gear and a balanced mixture of gases in the tank is 534 m. One requires a submarine to go any deeper.

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Incoming projectile less than 50 m in diameter burns up in the atmosphere of Venus. On Earth, an asteroid of 45 m in diameter can cause a blast with energy equivalent of 2.4 megatons of TNT which is 180 times of atomic blast at Hiroshima

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Among the many engineering challenges are the dangerous amounts of sulfuric acid at these heights

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The apparent magnitude of Venus is -4.6. For full Moon, it is -12.74 and for Sun, it is -26.74

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An alternative explanation for the lack of satellites is the effect of strong solar tides. These can destabilize large satellites orbiting the inner terrestrial planets

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Venus displays its largest size and “new phase” when it is between the Earth and the Sun

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Observers have speculated it may result from electrical activity in the Venusian atmosphere. But it could be illusory, resulting from the physiological effect of observing a bright, crescent-shaped object

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On 18 October 1967, the Soviet Venera 4 successfully entered the atmosphere and deployed science experiments

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Source: Wikipedia

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