Venus
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 Click image for description | |||||||
| Orbital characteristics (Epoch J2000) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semi-major axis | 108,208,926 km 0.723 331 99 AU | ||||||
| Orbital circumference | 680,000,000 km 4.545 AU | ||||||
| Eccentricity | 0.006 773 23 | ||||||
| Perihelion | 107,476,002 km 0.718 432 70 AU | ||||||
| Aphelion | 108,941,849 km 0.728 231 28 AU | ||||||
| Orbital period | 224.700 69 d (0.615 197 0 a) | ||||||
| Synodic period | 583.92 d | ||||||
| Avg. orbital speed | 35.020 km/s | ||||||
| Max. orbital speed | 35.259 km/s | ||||||
| Min. orbital speed | 34.784 km/s | ||||||
| Inclination | 3.394 71° (3.86° to Sun's equator) | ||||||
| Longitude of the ascending node | 76.680 69° | ||||||
| Argument of the perihelion | 54.852 29° | ||||||
| Number of satellites | 0 | ||||||
| Physical characteristics | |||||||
| Equatorial diameter | 12,103.7 km (0.949 Earths) | ||||||
| Surface area | 4.60×108 km2 (0.902 Earths) | ||||||
| Volume | 9.28×1011 km³ (0.857 Earths) | ||||||
| Mass | 4.8685×1024 kg (0.815 Earths) | ||||||
| Mean density | 5.204 g/cm3 | ||||||
| Equatorial gravity | 8.87 m/s2 (0.904 g) | ||||||
| Escape velocity | 10.36 km/s | ||||||
| Rotation period | −243.0185 d | ||||||
| Rotation velocity | 6.52 km/h (at the equator) | ||||||
| Axial tilt | 2.64° | ||||||
| Right ascension of North pole | 272.76° (18 h 11 min 2 s) 1 | ||||||
| Declination | 67.16° | ||||||
| Albedo | 0.65 | ||||||
| Surface* temp. |
| ||||||
| Adjective | Venusian or (rarely) Cytherean | ||||||
| (*min temperature refers to cloud tops only) | |||||||
| Atmospheric characteristics | |||||||
| Atmospheric pressure | 9.2 MPa | ||||||
| Carbon dioxide | ~96.5% | ||||||
| Nitrogen | ~3.5% | ||||||
| Sulfur dioxide | .015% | ||||||
| Argon | .007% | ||||||
| Water vapor | .002% | ||||||
| Carbon monoxide | .0017% | ||||||
| Helium | .0012% | ||||||
| Neon | .0007% | ||||||
| Carbonyl sulfide Hydrogen chloride Hydrogen fluoride | trace | ||||||
- For other uses, see Venus (disambiguation).
Venus (IPA: /ˈviːnəs/) is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It is the brightest object in the night sky, except for the Moon, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6. As an inferior planet, from Earth it never appears to venture far from the Sun, and its elongation reaches a maximum of 47.8°. Venus reaches its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset, and is often referred to as the Morning Star or as the Evening Star.
A terrestrial planet, it is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet", as the two are similar in size and bulk composition. The planet is covered with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds and its surface cannot be seen from space in visible light, making it a subject of great speculation until some of its secrets were revealed by planetary science in the twentieth century. Venus has the densest atmosphere of the terrestrial planets, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide, and the atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is 90 times that of the Earth.
Venus' surface has been mapped in detail only in the last 20 years. It shows evidence of extensive volcanism, and some of its volcanoes may still be active today. In contrast to the constant crustal movement seen on Earth, Venus is thought to undergo periodic episodes of plate tectonics, in which the crust is subducted rapidly within a few million years separated by stable periods of a few hundred million years.
The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and most of its surface features are named after famous and mythological women. The adjective Venusian is commonly used for items related to Venus, though the Latin adjective is the rarely used Venerean; the now-archaic Cytherean is still occasionally encountered.
posted by wachjoe9 @ 3:57 PM
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