Samuel Chiltern answered
Venus is only slightly smaller, with a diameter of 12,100 kilometres, compared with Earth's diameter of 12,800 kilometres.
Comparisons Between Venus and Earth
These two planets share some characteristics, including size, mass, composition of matter, and gravity.
At first glance you might think that Venus is habitable, but there is no way that humans could survive on its inhospitable surface.
Venus has a dense atmosphere that spins around the planet rapidly, creating powerful hurricanes. There is very little water in the atmosphere, which mostly consists of carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid - not a good combination for animal life as we know it.
If you add these unfavourable conditions to the atmospheric temperature on Venus, then you have an environment that is highly destructive. Venus' thick atmosphere traps the heat from the Sun, and temperatures can exceed 471 degrees Celsius - which is hot enough to melt lead!
All the probes that we've sent to Venus have rapidly disintegrated due to these hostile conditions, and the surface of the planet itself is weathered and eroded, with deformed mountains.
Venus is a peculiar member of the Solar System. For one thing, it spins on its axis from east to west (retrograde rotation), as opposed to the more typical prograde motion of west to east, exhibited by the Earth and all other planets in the Solar System, except Uranus.
The one thing about Venus that really sticks in my memory, however, is that the length of its day (243 Earth days) is greater than the length of its year (225 Earth days).
As a consequence of how slowly Venus rotates on its axis, it's not able to generate a significant magnetic field like Earth, despite having a heavy metal core like Earth.
Comparisons Between Venus and Earth
These two planets share some characteristics, including size, mass, composition of matter, and gravity.
At first glance you might think that Venus is habitable, but there is no way that humans could survive on its inhospitable surface.
Venus has a dense atmosphere that spins around the planet rapidly, creating powerful hurricanes. There is very little water in the atmosphere, which mostly consists of carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid - not a good combination for animal life as we know it.
If you add these unfavourable conditions to the atmospheric temperature on Venus, then you have an environment that is highly destructive. Venus' thick atmosphere traps the heat from the Sun, and temperatures can exceed 471 degrees Celsius - which is hot enough to melt lead!
All the probes that we've sent to Venus have rapidly disintegrated due to these hostile conditions, and the surface of the planet itself is weathered and eroded, with deformed mountains.
Venus is a peculiar member of the Solar System. For one thing, it spins on its axis from east to west (retrograde rotation), as opposed to the more typical prograde motion of west to east, exhibited by the Earth and all other planets in the Solar System, except Uranus.
The one thing about Venus that really sticks in my memory, however, is that the length of its day (243 Earth days) is greater than the length of its year (225 Earth days).
As a consequence of how slowly Venus rotates on its axis, it's not able to generate a significant magnetic field like Earth, despite having a heavy metal core like Earth.
