Space · Planets
Venus
The hottest planet — hotter than Mercury despite being farther from the Sun — a runaway-greenhouse hellscape under crushing CO₂ clouds.
Quick facts
Type
Terrestrial
Distance from Sun
0.723 AU
108.2 million km
Diameter
12,104 km
Mass
0.815 Earth masses
4.87 × 10²⁴ kg
Surface gravity
8.87 m/s²
Day length
2802 Earth hours
Year length
224.7 Earth days
0.615 Earth years
Mean surface temperature
464 (mean) °C
Atmosphere
96.5% CO₂, 3.5% N₂ (90 bar surface pressure)
Confirmed moons
0
Naming origin
Roman goddess of love
What's there
Venus is the cautionary tale of the inner solar system. A surface pressure of 90 atmospheres — the equivalent of being a kilometer underwater on Earth — sits beneath thick clouds of sulfuric acid droplets, and the CO₂-dominated atmosphere traps so much heat that the surface temperature is 464°C nearly uniformly, day or night, equator or pole. Every Soviet Venera lander that survived the descent (Venera 7 through 14) returned data for at most about two hours before electronics failed in the heat.
Beneath the clouds the surface is volcanic plains and highland regions, mapped by Magellan's radar in 1990–1994. Venus rotates backward (retrograde) compared to most planets, and slowly enough that a Venusian day is longer than its year. The cause of the retrograde rotation is unsettled; the leading hypotheses involve early thermal tides in the dense atmosphere coupling to the solid body. NASA's DAVINCI and VERITAS missions, and ESA's EnVision, are scheduled to return to Venus in the early 2030s.
Who's been there
| Mission | Encounter | Year | Status | Primary objective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Mariner 2 NASA |
Flyby | 1962 | Completed | First successful interplanetary flyby of any planet. |
|
Venera 7 USSR |
Lander | 1970 | Completed | First successful soft landing on another planet; survived 23 minutes. |
|
Venera 9 USSR |
Lander | 1975 | Completed | First images from the surface of another planet. |
|
Magellan NASA |
Orbiter | 1990 | Completed | Radar-mapped 98% of the Venusian surface from orbit. Plunged into the atmosphere 1994. |
|
Venus Express ESA |
Orbiter | 2006 | Completed | Long-duration atmospheric study; mission ended 2014. |
|
Akatsuki JAXA |
Orbiter | 2015 | Completed | Atmospheric dynamics study. Mission ended 2024. |
On the way
-
DAVINCI (NASA)
Descent probe to characterize atmospheric chemistry. — arrival ~2031.
-
VERITAS (NASA)
High-resolution radar topographic mapping. — arrival ~2031.
-
EnVision (ESA)
Surface and subsurface characterization. — arrival ~2032.
Moons
Venus has no moons.
Naming etymology
Venus is named for the Roman goddess of love and beauty — the brightest planet in the night sky, visible to the unaided eye even at twilight, often the first 'star' to appear and the last to fade. The Greeks called it Aphrodite. Babylonian astronomers, who tracked Venus's apparitions with unusual care, identified the planet with Ishtar. Across cultures the brightest planet routinely drew the name of the most beautiful or beloved deity in the pantheon — the visual brightness was the trigger, not the planet's properties (which were unknown until the space age).
Methodology & sources
Numerical data drawn from the NASA Planetary Fact Sheets; satellite parameters from JPL Solar System Dynamics — Physical Parameters and the JPL Satellite Discovery Circumstances table. Mission history cross-referenced against NASA's mission catalog and individual mission pages. Naming etymology from the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature. Hero rendering is a stylized SVG composed from primary-source visual reference (NASA / JPL imagery) — no photographs are reproduced.