Venus, Earth's near-twin, is the brightest object
in the sky except for the Sun and the Moon. Venus has almost a perfectly
circular orbit around the Sun. However Venus has a unique twist.
It rotates clockwise unlike Earth which rotates counter-clockwise.
This means the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east. It takes
Venus 224.7 Earth days to orbit the sun yet the rotation of Venus is so
slow it takes almost 4 months for Venus to complete one day!
Venus, which is concealed in a dense cloud, has a
gaseous atmosphere like Earth. Yet, unlike Earth, these clouds are
made up of !
Don't get caught out in the rain on Venus!
At the surface of Venus the temperature is almost 500 C and
the atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of Earth. The ground is
composed mostly of lava rock with lakes of molten lava everywhere.
Geologically speaking, Venus is similar to Earth in planetary
composition.
Do you think the Earth could
ever look like Venus?