Venus

** Venus

Venus is the second closest planet to the sun and it is the hottest of the terrestrial planets. It takes Venus approximately 225 days to orbit the Sun. It’s the second largest terrestrial planet, just a bit smaller than earth.

Venus has a thick and opaque atmosphere consisting of sulfuric acid. This makes it nearly impossible to see the surface of Venus. Rain does occur in the atmosphere of Venus, however, the rain is in the form of sulfuric acid and the rain would have evaporated 25km above the surface, thus the surface of the planet is very hot and very dry.

Because the planet has such a thick atmosphere, it produces the greenhouse effect. This traps all the heat on the planet making Venus very hot. The temperatures of Venus vary from - 32°C to 500°C.

The surface of Venus mainly consists of volcanoes and craters. 167 volcanoes on Venus are approximately 100km wide in diameter and are still active. There are about 1000 craters on the planet and their sizes vary from 3km to 280km wide. ** http://www.aerospaceguide.net/planet/planetvenus.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus http://www.solarviews.com/eng/venus.htm