Planets · Planet

Venus

108 million km from the Sun · Light crosses it in 0.040 seconds

Across

12,104 km

Vs Earth

0.95× Earth

Mass

0.81 Earths

Open Venus in Cosmic Scale

About

Venus is almost Earth's twin in size, and nothing like it in every other way. A crushing atmosphere of carbon dioxide traps heat so effectively that the surface is hotter than Mercury's, and clouds of sulfuric acid hide it from view.

The hottest planet — its surface is hot enough to melt lead.

At a glance

Year	225 days
Day	243 days, backwards
Surface	465 °C, 92 atmospheres
Clouds	Sulfuric acid

Did you know

1. Its day is longer than its year, and it spins the opposite way to almost everything else.
2. The pressure at the surface matches being 900 m underwater on Earth; the longest a lander has survived is two hours.
3. It is the brightest object in our sky after the Sun and Moon, which is why it is called the morning or evening star.

Real photo

• Venus from Mariner 10, reprocessed in 2020 — NASA/JPL-Caltech · source