Venus
Earth's
"Sister" Planet
Imagine a hellishly hot world
covered with thick clouds shedding acid rain over a volcanic landscape.
Think it couldn't exist?
Well, it does, and its name
is Venus.
That uninhabitable world is
the second planet out from the Sun and misnamed Earth's "sister."
It is named after the Roman
goddess of love, but if humans wanted to live there, we would not find it at
all welcoming.
So, why is Venus called
Earth's sister?
Despite the stifling heat
trapped under its thick clouds, it turns out that Venus has some similarities
to Earth.
First, Venus is roughly the
same size, density and composition as our planet.
It is a rocky planet — a
terrestrial world. It orbits a bit closer to the Sun than Earth does, and it
appears to have been formed at about the time as our planet.
TWO SISTERS PART WAYS
The
two worlds part ways when you look at their surface conditions and
atmospheres.
While they may both have
started out as temperature and water-rich worlds, Earth stayed that way.
Venus took a wrong turn
somewhere, and became a desolate, hot, unforgiving place that the late astronomer
George Abell once described in textbook as being the closest thing we have to
Hell in the solar system.
LOCATION
Venus
lies more than 108,000,000 kilometers from the Sun, just about 50 million
kilometers closer than Earth.
That' makes it our
nearest planetary neighbor.
In fact, Venus is so
close to us, and so bright (due to the Sun's reflection off its atmosphere),
that it is the only object besides our Moon that can be seen from Earth during
the evening and during the day!
ROTATION
Venus
takes 225 Earth days to complete one orbit of the Sun.
Like the other planets in our solar system, Venus rotates on its axis.
However, it doesn't go
from west to east as Earth does; instead it spins from east to west.
If you lived on Venus,
the Sun would appear to rise in the west in the morning, and set in the east in
the evening!
Even stranger, Venus
rotates so slowly that one day on Venus is equivalent to 117 days on Earth.
SIZE
At
approximately 4.9 x 1024 kilograms,
Venus is also nearly as massive as Earth.
As a result, the gravity on
Venus (8.87 m/s2) is nearly the same as it is on Earth (9.81 m/s2).
Additionally, scientists
conclude that the structure of the planet's interior is similar to Earth's,
with an iron core and a rocky mantel.
THE VOLCANIC VENUSIAN SURFACE
The
surface of Venus is a very desolate, barren place and only a few spacecraft
have ever landed on it.
The Soviet Venera missions
settled onto the surface and showed Venus to be a volcanic desert.
These spacecraft were able to
take pictures, as well as sample rocks and take other various measurements.
The rocky surface of Venus is
sculpted through constant volcanic activity, and is comprised of low, rolling
plains punctuated by mountains that are much smaller than those here on Earth.
There is also a lack of small
impact craters, like those seen on the other terrestrial planets.
This is due to the thickness
of the Venusian atmosphere. It prevents all but the largest meteors from
reaching the surface.
THE VENUSIAN ATMOSPHERE
The
atmosphere of Venus is even more hellish than its active volcanic surface.
The thick blanket of air
is very different than the atmosphere on Earth, and would have devastating
effects on humans if we attempted to live there.
It consists mainly of carbon
dioxide (~96.5%), while only containing about 3.5% nitrogen.
This is in stark contrast to
our breathable atmosphere, which contains primarily nitrogen (78%) and oxygen
(21%).
Moreover, the effect the
atmosphere has on the rest of the planet is dramatic.
GLOBAL WARMING ON VENUS
Global
warming is a great cause for concern on Earth, specifically caused
by the emission of "greenhouse gases" into our atmosphere.
As these gases
accumulate, they trap heat near the surface, causing our planet to heat up.
Earth's global warming
has been exacerbated by human activity. However, on Venus, it happened
naturally.
That's because Venus
has such a dense atmosphere it traps heat caused by sunlight and volcanism.
That has given the
planet the mother of all greenhouse conditions.
Among other things,
global warming on Venus sends the surface temperature soaring to more than 800
degrees Fahrenheit (462 C).
LIVING CONDITIONS ON VENUS
As
destructive as the surface temperature of Venus is, it is nothing compared to
the atmospheric pressure from the extremely dense blanket of air and clouds
that swaddle the planet.
The weight of the atmosphere
is 90 times greater than Earth's atmosphere is at sea level.
It is the same pressure we
would feel if we were standing under 3,000 feet of water.
This pressure is so high,
that when the early Venera spacecraft landed, they only had a few
moments to take data before they were crushed and melted.
EXPLORING VENUS
Since
the 1960s, the U.S., Soviet (Russian), Europeans and Japanese have sent
spacecraft to Venus.
Aside from the Venera landers, most of these missions (such
as the Pioneer Venus orbiters and
European Space Agency's Venus Express) explored
the planet from afar, studying the atmosphere.
Others, such as the Magellan mission, performed radar scans to chart the surface features.
Future missions include the
BepiColumbo, a joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Japanese
Aerospace Exploration, which will study Mercury and Venus.
The Japanese Akatsuki spacecraft entered orbit around Venus
and began studying the planet in 2015.
Edited by Carolyn Collins Petersen.
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