Venus_Sunrise

Venus_Sunrise
The quest to understand our solar system begins close to home.

Mariner 2: First Spacecraft to Explore Venus

This page showcases our resources for those interested in learning more about Venus.

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Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is Earth’s closest planetary neighbor. It’s one of the four inner, terrestrial (or rocky) planets, and it’s often called Earth’s twin because it’s similar in size and density. These are not identical twins, however – there are radical differences between the two worlds.
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. It’s the hottest planet in our solar system, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. Surface temperatures on Venus are about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius) – hot enough to melt lead. The surface is a rusty color and it’s peppered with intensely crunched mountains and thousands of large volcanoes. Scientists think it’s possible some volcanoes are still active.
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.
Another big difference from Earth – Venus rotates on its axis backward, compared to most of the other planets in the solar system. This means that, on Venus, the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, opposite to what we experience on Earth. (It’s not the only planet in our solar system with such an oddball rotation – Uranus spins on its side .)
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. 14, 1962. Since then, numerous spacecraft from the U.S. and other space agencies have explored Venus, including NASA’s Magellan , which mapped the planet's surface with radar. Soviet spacecraft made the most successful landings on the surface of Venus to date, but they didn’t survive long due to the extreme heat and crushing pressure. An American probe, one of NASA's Pioneer Venus Multiprobes , survived for about an hour after impacting the surface in 1978.
More recent Venus missions include ESA’s Venus Express (which orbited from 2006 until 2016) and Japan’s Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter (orbiting since 2016).
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has made multiple flybys of Venus. On Feb. 9, 2022, NASA announced the spacecraft had captured its f irst visible light images of the surface of Venus from space during its February 2021 flyby.
In June 2021, three new missions to Venus were announced. NASA announced two new missions , and ESA announced one :
As it sped away in February 1974, NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft captured this view of Venus showing a world wrapped in a dense layer of toxic clouds. The clouds whip around the planet at about 200 miles per hour (100 meters per second), circling the globe in about four and a half days. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Venus is often called "Earth’s twin" because they’re similar in size and structure, but Venus has extreme surface heat and a dense, toxic atmosphere. If the Sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth and Venus would each be about the size of a nickel.
Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun, orbiting at a distance of about 67 million miles (108 million kilometers)
Venus rotates very slowly on its axis – one day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days. The planet orbits the Sun faster than Earth, however, so one year on Venus takes only about 225 Earth days, making a Venusian day longer than its year!
Venus has a solid surface covered in dome-like volcanoes, rifts, and mountains, with expansive volcanic plains and vast, ridged plateaus.
The average surface of Venus is less than a billion years old, and possibly as young as 150 million years old – which is relatively young from a geological perspective. This is a major conundrum for scientists – they don’t know exactly what happened that made Venus completely resurface itself.
Venus’ thick atmosphere traps heat creating a runaway greenhouse effect – making it the hottest planet in our solar system with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. The greenhouse effect makes Venus roughly 700°F (390°C) hotter than it would be without a greenhouse effect.
Venus is permanently shrouded in thick, toxic clouds of sulfuric acid that start at an altitude of 28 to 43 miles (45 to 70 kilometers). The clouds smell like rotten eggs!
Venus was the first planet explored by a spacecraft and was intensely studied early in the history of space exploration. Venus was also the first planet whose surface was reached by a spacecraft from Earth. The intense heat means landers have only survived for a couple of hours.
Venus is an unlikely place for life as we know it, but some scientists theorize microbes might exist high in the clouds where it’s cooler and the pressure is similar to Earth’s surface. Phosphine, a possible indicator of microbial life, has been observed in the clouds.
Venus rotates backward on its axis compared to most planets in our solar system. This means the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east, opposite of what we see on Earth.
Because it’s so bright and easy to see in the sky, Venus has played a role in popular culture since ancient times, inspiring writing and song:
It was called the most beautiful star in the sky by Homer, author of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" – two of the oldest and most important works in Greek literature.
More recently, Venus became a popular venue for 20th-century science fiction writers, including Edgar Rice Burroughs (“Pirates of Venus,” 1934); Arthur C. Clarke (“Before Eden,” 1961); and C.S. Lewis (“Perelandra,” 1943).
Australian author Shirley Hazzard won the 1980 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction with her book, “The Transit of Venus,” about two orphaned sisters. American author John Gray used the planet and its masculine counterpart to explain relationships in his 1992 book “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.”
A song called “Venus” was teen idol Frankie Avalon’s first No. 1 hit when it topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1959. A decade later, a different song called “Venus" by the Dutch rock band Shocking Blue topped the charts in several countries. In 1986, British pop group Bananarama had a No. 1 hit in the U.S. with their cover of the song.
More recently, Venus has been a backdrop for video games such as Transhuman Space, Battlezone, and Destiny. And in the Disney animated film “The Princess and the Frog,” Ray the firefly falls in love with Venus, “the evening star,” as he has mistaken it for another firefly.
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and Earth’s closest planetary neighbor. Even though Mercury is closer to the Sun, Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system. Its thick atmosphere is full of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, and it has clouds of sulfuric acid. The atmosphere traps heat, making it feel like a furnace on the surface. It’s so hot on Venus, the metal lead would melt.
Venus is sometimes called Earth’s twin because it’s similar in size and structure, but the planets are very different in other ways. In addition to being extremely hot, Venus is unusual because it spins in the opposite direction of Earth and most other planets. It also has a very slow rotation making its day longer than its year.
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article last updated September 1, 2021

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Even though Venus isn't the closest planet to the Sun, it is still the hottest. It has a thick atmosphere full of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and clouds made of sulfuric acid. The gas traps heat and keeps Venus toasty warm. In fact, it's so hot on Venus, metals like lead would be puddles of melted liquid.
All 3D models in the page have loaded
Explore Venus! Click and drag to rotate the planet. Scroll or pinch to zoom in and out. Credit: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development (VTAD)
Venus looks like a very active planet. It has mountains and volcanoes. Venus is similar in size to Earth. Earth is just a little bit bigger.
Venus is unusual because it spins the opposite direction of Earth and most other planets. And its rotation is very slow. It takes about 243 Earth days to spin around just once. Because it's so close to the Sun, a year goes by fast. It takes 225 Earth days for Venus to go all the way around the Sun. That means that a day on Venus is a little longer than a year on Venus.
Since the day and year lengths are similar, one day on Venus is not like a day on Earth. Here, the Sun rises and sets once each day. But on Venus, the Sun rises every 117 Earth days. That means the Sun rises two times during each year on Venus, even though it is still the same day on Venus! And because Venus rotates backwards, the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
Just like Mercury, Venus doesn't have any moons.
Here you can see the clouds covering Venus.
This is a combination of images taken by the Magellan spacecraft. The colors have been altered so you can see all the differences in Venus's surface. Magellan used radar to get information about the surface of Venus, which we can't normally see because of the thick, cloudy atmosphere.
A crater on the surface of Venus. It's 45 miles (72 km) wide.

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Venus is the brightest planet. But it’s blazingly bright in early 2022, at its brightest for this year. You can’t miss it! Look in the sunrise direction on any clear morning around now. When it’s this bright, Venus appears as an eerily eye-catching beacon, low in the dawn sky. It’s visible in bright morning twilight only, blazing out from the pink sky. Venus will reach its greatest illuminated extent in our sky on February 9, 2022. That’s when the lighted portion of the planet – the crescent Venus, seen through telescopes now – will cover its greatest area on our sky’s dome. So it’s around this time that Venus appears at greatest brilliancy to the eye.
After its peak brightness around February 9, Venus won’t appear this bright in our sky again until July, 2023.
Greatest brilliancy for Venus is a treat! Watch for Venus in the east before sunrise in the days ahead.
Venus’ reign in the morning sky started on January 9, 2022 when it passed between Earth and the sun in an event called inferior conjunction . It’ll remain a morning “star” – visible in the east before sunrise – until late September or early October of 2022. Then it’ll become too close to the sunrise to be visible from Earth. It’ll pass behind the sun from Earth on October 22, 2022. Astronomers call this event a “superior conjunction” of Venus.
Did you know that Venus shows phases, just as the moon does? But you’ll need a small telescope to view its changing phases.
Check out the diagram below to visualize Venus’ phases and its location relative to the sun and Earth. The planet appears smallest – covering the smallest area of sky – just after superior conjunction . When that happens, Venus is located at the far side of its orbit from us. It’s just peeking out after being behind or almost behind the sun as viewed from Earth. And its daylight side faces us. And it’s in the evening sky. Superior conjunction last happened on March 26, 2021. It’ll happen next on October 22, 2022.
After superior conjunction, as Venus continues in its orbit, the distance between Earth and Venus begins to decrease. Venus is pulling up behind Earth, on the inside track around the sun. The apparent disk of the planet grows larger but we see less of its daylight size. Through a telescope, we can see Venus wane in phase, going from gibbous , to half disk, and to a crescent.
Venus then passes in front, or nearly in front, of the sun at inferior conjunction . That’s the event that happened on January 9, 2022. At inferior conjunction – when Venus is passing between us and the sun, the planet’s night side is facing Earth’s direction. We can’t see Venus, in part because its day side is facing away from us and in part because the planet is traveling with the sun across the sky throughout the day. At inferior conjunction, Venus is lost in the sun’s glare.
It might surprise you to learn that Venus shines most brightly in our sky when displaying a crescent phase, approximately 25% illuminated. Venus’ greatest illuminated extent is when the lit part of the planet covers the largest area on the sky. For Venus, that moment occurs during its crescent phase, and that’s around when it appears brightest to us.
In the diagram above, note two points in Venus’ orbit called greatest elongation . That’s when the angle between Earth, Venus, and the sun is 90 degrees. It’s also when Venus appears at its highest, greatest distance from the sun on our sky’s dome. Around greatest elongation, we see Venus as approximately 50% illuminated, a half-Venus.
Why did we ask you to take note of the greatest elongations? Because Venus’ greatest illuminated extent in the evening sky – which happened in early December 2021 – always happens about a month after Venus reaches greatest eastern elongation. The last eastern elongation happened on October 29, 2021 . Venus was brightest, at greatest illuminated extent, on December 3. After greatest illuminated extent, about another month passes before Venus sweeps to inferior conjunction, this time it was on January 9, 2022 when Venus officially left our evening sky, and entered our morning sky.
So perhaps it comes as no surprise that Venus is now having another greatest illuminated extent, this time in the morning sky. After all, as it speeds ahead of Earth in orbit, its phase will be increasing. About a month after inferior conjunction – on February 9, 2022, a month after the January 9 inferior conjunction – Venus is once more at greatest illuminated extent and at its brightest in the morning sky.
It’s time of greatest brilliancy comes just over a month before Venus will reach greatest western elongation – its greatest distance from the sunrise – on March 20, 2022.
Isn’t it great how orderly the heavens are? Enjoy Venus at its brightest! It’s a sight to see.
Bottom line: Venus was brightest in the evening sky around December 3, 2021. It’s brightest in the morning sky around February 9, 2022. After February 9, Venus will not be this bright again until July 2023.

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