10 Interesting Facts about Venus

If you love to observe sky and its solar system, then you should have known one of these following facts about Venus since it’s very interesting to learn. Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It has no natural satellite and is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of -4.6, bright enough to cast shadows. To get to know more other facts about it, here are some facts about Venus you may like.

Facts about Venus 1: Moon

Venus and Mercury are the only two planets in the Solar System not to have moons orbiting them.

Facts about Venus 2: Strong Pressure

If you were able to stand on the surface of Venus, it would feel like being 1 kilometer under the sea on Earth, a depth deep enough to sink a submarine. A person or a creature would immediately be crushed by Venus’ amazingly strong pressure.

Facts about Venus 3: Thick Atmosphere

Venus may have such a thick atmosphere because it spins so slowly. In fact, a year on Venus is shorter than its day. It takes the planet longer to turn on its axis than it takes it to orbit the Sun. The slow rotation means that atmosphere does not have a force to spin off into space.

Facts about Venus 4: Clockwise

Venus is the only planet in the Solar System to turn clockwise. All other planets turn anti-clockwise. It rotates clockwise on its axis extremely slowly, suggesting that something might have once collided with it to disrupt its regular rotation.

Facts about Venus 5: Morning and Evening Stars

People once believed Venus to be two different stars known as the Morning Star and the Evening Star, because it can be seen in the morning and the evening.

Facts about Venus 6: Second Brightest Object

After the Sun and the Moon, Venus is the brightest object in the night-sky from Earth.

Facts about Venus 7: Probe

The Americans have only ever landed one probe on Venus. This was Pioneer Venus 2, launched on 8th August 1978 which was to probe the planet’s atmosphere, not examine its surface. All other landings on Venus were made by the Russians.

Facts about Venus 8: Venus’ Axis

Venus’ axis hardly has any tilt at all, unlike Mars and Earth. This means that, if it had a thin atmosphere, the planet would not have seasons.

Facts about Venus 9: Volcanoes-less

There are more volcanoes on Venus than on any other planet in the Solar System, although it is not yet known whether any of these volcanoes are still active.

Facts about Venus 10: “Future: Earth

Venus may now resemble what Earth will become in millions of years time, when the Sun expands, heats the Earth, turning all of its surface water into a vapor which will trap sunlight and heat in its atmosphere, causing suffocating conditions like those on Venus.

Hope you found those Venus facts really interesting and useful, especially for those observing it.