and other space agencies have explored Venus, including NASA’s Magellan, which mapped the planet's surface with radar. Since then, numerous spacecraft from the U.S. Venus was the first planet to be explored by a spacecraft – NASA’s Mariner 2 successfully flew by and scanned the cloud-covered world on Dec. (It’s not the only planet in our solar system with such an oddball rotation – Uranus spins on its side.) This means that, on Venus, the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, opposite to what we experience on Earth. Venus has crushing air pressure at its surface – more than 90 times that of Earth – similar to the pressure you'd encounter a mile below the ocean on Earth.Īnother big difference from Earth – Venus rotates on its axis backward, compared to most of the other planets in the solar system. Scientists think it’s possible some volcanoes are still active. The surface is a rusty color and it’s peppered with intensely crunched mountains and thousands of large volcanoes. Surface temperatures on Venus are about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius) – hot enough to melt lead. It’s the hottest planet in our solar system, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. Venus has a thick, toxic atmosphere filled with carbon dioxide and it’s perpetually shrouded in thick, yellowish clouds of sulfuric acid that trap heat, causing a runaway greenhouse effect.
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