Do you know which is the hottest planet in the solar system? Did you know that Mercury is not the hottest planet as a lot of people think?
That is exactly what we are coming here through this video to inform you about. As Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, a lot of people think that it is the hottest planet in the solar system. However, this is not the case. Venus, which is the second planet from the Sun, is the hottest planet. Now you might be asking yourself why Venus would be hotter than Mercury even though it is not close to the sun as Mercury is. Let’s find out the reason!
Why Is Venus the Hottest Planet and Not Mercury?
Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system even though it is not the closest planet to the Sun. Why? Because Venus has an atmosphere or a layer of gas surrounding the planet, that is very thick. This thick atmosphere traps heat on the planet and prevents it from escaping back into space. This process is called the “greenhouse effect,” and it makes the surface of Venus hotter than that of Mercury and those of all other planets in the solar system.
Introduction to Venus
Venus is one of the eight planets that orbit the Sun in our Solar System. It is the second planet from the Sun, and Earth’s nearest neighbour. The average distance from the Sun to Venus is about 67 million miles (108 million kilometres). Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, and the brightest planet in the sky when viewed from Earth.
Surface and Structure
Venus is a terrestrial planet. It is solid and rocky. Most of Venus’s surface consists of plains. Mountains and hills are rare. Lava flows cover much of the surface. There are a lot of large volcanoes on Venus. One of the largest volcanoes on Venus is called “Sif Mons.” Venus has many active volcanoes on its surface to this day. In addition, scientists believe that Venus has layers like those of Earth. The layers are mainly a metal core, a rocky middle, and a crust.
Size
Venus is about the same size and weight as Earth, but it is slightly smaller than Earth. Its diameter is about 12,100 kilometres. It is the second largest among terrestrial planets, After Earth, and the sixth largest among all planets in the solar system.
Venus is nearly three times bigger than Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system. On the other hand, it is nearly 11.8 times smaller than Jupiter, the biggest planet in the solar system. Around 1400 planets the size of Venus together could fit the size of Jupiter. Compared to Mars, Venus is nearly two times bigger.
Atmosphere and Temperature
Venus is surrounded by a thick and heavy atmosphere made of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. There are also thick clouds of sulphuric acid covering the planet. The gases and clouds trap heat and keep Venus hot. The temperature near Venus’ surface is about 867° F (464° C). It is hot enough to melt lead. Moreover, the thick and dense atmosphere causes very high pressure. The pressure on Venus is 92 times the pressure on Earth, which is enough to crush many things.
Scientists believe that the atmosphere of Venus could have been like that of Earth billions of years ago. There may also have been plenty of water on the surface of Venus. But after billions of years, the evaporation of water caused a greenhouse effect, which made lots of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.
Orbit and Rotation
Venus has two types of motion: orbit around the Sun, and spin around its centre. It takes Venus 225 Earth days to complete an orbit around the Sun, so a year on Venus lasts 225 Earth days. The orbit of Venus is not elliptical like that of other planets, but it is nearly circular. Thus, when Venus and Earth are on the same side of the Sun and Venus is between the Sun and Earth, Venus makes the closest approach to Earth. The average distance between Venus and Earth in this situation is around 41 million kilometres. This is the closest a planet can get to Earth of all other planets.
While orbiting the Sun, Venus rotates, or spins, about its centre. However, it rotates in the opposite direction of most planets. This is called a retrograde rotation. In addition, Venus spins very slowly. It is the planet with the slowest rotation of any other planet. It completes one rotation in 243 Earth days, which makes a day on Venus last 243 days. This makes the day on Venus longer than the year.
Discovery and Exploration
People have known Venus since ancient times because it can be seen easily from Earth without a telescope. In addition, there are more than 20 unmanned spacecraft that have visited Venus, including:
- In 1962, the American spacecraft “Mariner 2” passed by Venus, and it was the first spacecraft to fly near another planet.
- In 1970, the Soviet Union’s spacecraft “Venera 7” landed on Venus, and it was the first spacecraft to successfully land on another planet.
- In the 1990s, the American spacecraft “Magellan” mapped Venus’ surface in great detail.
- In 2005, the European Space Agency sent a craft to study Venus’ atmosphere.
Name
The planet Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, who is known as Aphrodite in Greek mythology. Ancient people believed that this goddess shined the brightest. So, the planet Venus was named after this goddess because it appears so bright in Earth’s night sky.
Colour
It is hard to know the true colour of Venus and its surface because of the dense atmosphere and the thick clouds that surround it. The clouds are so thick that light cannot even go through them to light up the surface. This means that if you were to stand on the surface of Venus, it would be dark.
But when we look at Venus with the naked eye, it looks very bright with white and yellow colours. However, the pictures that scientists have gathered shows that the surface of Venus has brown and red rocks and dust. So, we can say that Venus is white and yellow with a reddish and brown surface.
20 Interesting Facts about Venus
- Venus can almost always be seen with the naked eye without using binoculars or telescopes.
- Venus is so bright that it is the second brightest object in our night sky, after the moon.
- Venus reflects 70% of all the sunlight it receives, and this is the reason why it shines so brightly.
- Venus is sometimes called Earth’s sister planet because they share almost similar size, mass, closeness to the Sun, and gravity.
- A space journey from Earth to Venus takes 6 months long.
- Any spacecraft sent to Venus only survives for around an hour because it is too hot there.
- On Venus, the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east because of its retrograde rotation.
- While the Sun rises and sets once each day on Earth, it rises once every 117 days on Venus. This means that the Sun rises only twice each Venusian year.
- It takes sunlight 6 minutes to reach Venus.
- Scientists believe that Venus once had large amounts of water, but it boiled away because of the high temperatures.
- Venus is the planet that has the largest number of volcanoes among all the planets in the solar system. It has more than 1600 volcanoes, and many of them are active to this day.
- Ancient people thought that Venus was two different objects in the sky: The Morning Star, and the Evening Star. They also thought the same about the planet Mercury.
- Venus and Mercury are the only planets in the Solar System that do not have a moon.
- Venus does not have any rings, and because it rotates very slowly, its magnetosphere is also very weak.
- The clouds on Venus are yellowish. This is because they are not formed from water vapour like the ones on Earth, but they are rather formed from a poison called sulfuric acid.
- Although Venus has many clouds, it is too hot there to rain.
- Some of the Volcanoes on Venus appear to be squashed from above. For that reason, they have been named “pancake volcanoes.” Some of the craters look like big spiders, and they are named “Arachnoids.”
- If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 91 pounds on Venus.
- Venus is the only planet that is named after a female deity.
- The symbol Venus is the world’s symbol for the female gender.