Venus+-+by

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the sixth largest. Venus' orbit is the most nearly circular of that of any planet, with an eccentricity of less than 1%.

orbit: 108,200,000 km from the Sun diameter: 12,103.6 km mass: 4.869e24 kg

Venus has been known since prehistoric times. It is the brightest object in the sky except for the Sun and the Moon. Like Mercury, it was thought to be two separate bodies: Eosphorus as the morning star and Hesperus as the evening star, but the Greek astronomers knew better. (Venus's apparition as the morning star is also sometimes called Lucifer. The pressure of Venus's atmosphere at the surface is 90 atmospheres (about the same as the pressure at a depth of 1 km in Earth's oceans). It is composed mostly of carbon dioxide. There are several layers of clouds many kilometers thick. These clouds completely obscure our view of the surface. This dense atmosphere produces a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus's surface temperature, by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus's surface is actually hotter than Mercury's despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun.

Venus documentary v media type="youtube" key="18iKbCgXgpw" height="338" width="433"