Named after the Roman goddess of love, Venus has long since captured the imagination of astronomers. Located over 67 million miles from the sun, Venus is a turbulent world. The temperatures on this planet can easily reach up to 880º F (471º C), and the pressure can reach 91 bars. (For comparison, Earth has a pressure of 1 bar.) 

These extreme conditions have made it nearly impossible to study this planet from its surface, as the probes can only last a few hours in the treacherous conditions. Instead, there have been over 9 missions that are space based, and orbit the planet, gathering data remotely about its surface. 

However, this poses a problem too. Venus suffers from centuries of greenhouse gas accumulation. The gases on the surface ended up in the atmosphere and created an environment that traps in all the heat produced, making it the hottest planet in the solar system. Even hotter than Mercury, that is so close to our star that it completes a revolution in 88 Earth days. 

Often considered to be the twin planet of Earth, Venus is a constant reminder of how deadly greenhouse gases can be to an environment. 

On top of all this, Venus has some unique qualities that set it apart from all the other planets. 

Rotation:

Venus has the honor of being one of the two planets in our solar system that rotate West to East. This means that the sun would appear to rise in the East and set in the West. The only other planet in our system that has this rotation is Uranus.

On top of its unusual rotation, Venus also spins extremely slowly. One rotation takes the planet 243 Earth-days. That’s the longest rotation period of any planet in our solar system. In fact, its so long that a day on Venus is about three times longer that its year

Earth has a tilt of 23.5º, and it’s precisely this tilt that gives us the seasons. However, Venus has a tilt of only 3 degrees, meaning it spins nearly upright. Because of this Venus doesn’t have the pleasure of experiencing seasons like we do.

Atmosphere:
From early on, Venus was identified by our ancestors. This is because it’s one of the more noticeable objects in the night sky. Even through a fair amount of light pollution, it’s one of the only planets that can easily be viewed. The brightness of Venus has to do with its clouds that reflect most of the sunlight that hits it.

Unlike the clouds on Earth which are made up of water molecule, in the Venusian atmosphere are made of sulfuric acid. The clouds are whipped around the planet at high speeds, while lightning sparks between them. These clouds are also responsible for trapping all the heat of the planet, creating the most extreme temperatures in our Solar System.

Surface:
The surface of Venus is made up of rocks that are thought to have been created due to volcanic activity. However, the acidic atmosphere blocks out most of the light, making the entire surface appear orange. 

Like, Earth, Venus also has mountains, the highest (Maxwell Montes) being roughly the height of Mount Everest.

The surface is also littered with large craters and plains, however, not much has been seen from the ground. Missions to Venus are dangerous, especially the ones that must land. The longest a rover has survived on the surface was a few hours, before it was melted away.

The Venusian environment doesn’t seem very suitable for life, but scientist believe that it may have once existed. Considering that the top layers of the atmosphere are around the same temperature as Earth, speculations continue as to what happened in Venus’s past that landed it such an extreme fate.

Resources:
NASA, NASA