Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. As the brightest natural object in Earth's night sky after the Moon, Venus can cast shadows and can be, on rare occasions, visible to the naked eye in broad daylight.
- A day on Venus is longer than its year.
- Of all the solar system's planets, Venus is the closest to a twin of Earth, with a similar size, orbit and composition.
- Floating cities above the clouds of Venus may be our best bet for becoming a two-planet species. Conditions there are so similar to Earth a human wouldn't need a pressurized suit, the gravity is similar and transit times are shorter than to Mars.
- It snows metal on planet Venus.
- The surface gravities of Venus, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are all quite similar (within 15%) to Earth's.
- There are 5 planets you can see with the naked eye, not using a telescope: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
- Your voice would be deeper on Venus because its dense atmosphere would cause your vocal cords to vibrate more slowly.
- The Soviets landed a spacecraft on Venus in 1970. It became the first to land on another planet and the first to transmit data from there back to Earth.
- Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet in the solar system, with over 1600.
- Temperatures in Venus can reach a 870 degrees Fahrenheit (470 degrees Celsius).
- Winds howl across Venus at super-fast speeds that can reach 450 mph (724 kph) in its middle cloud layer.
- The air pressure on the surface of Venus is extreme: about 90 times higher than the pressure at sea level here on Earth.
- In about 5 billion years, the Sun will deplete its supply of hydrogen and helium, turning into a red giant star, consuming Mercury and Venus and maybe even Earth.
- Venus spins in the opposite direction from most other planets so that on Venus the sun rises in the west.
- No man-made object has survived on Venus for more than 127 minutes.