Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and Earth's closest neighbor. In the night sky, it appears as a brilliant point of light, surpassed in brightness only by the Sun and Moon. Approximately 90% of Venus’s surface consists of solidified basaltic lava, largely undisturbed by meteor craters. The planet’s surface is shrouded by dense clouds at altitudes ranging from 50 to 70 km. These clouds contain corrosive substances such as sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid. Venus' fast-rotating atmosphere is mainly composed of carbon dioxide, along with smaller amounts of nitrogen, oxygen and water vapor, which combine to form a powerful greenhouse effect that create surface temperatures of up to 470°C and an atmospheric pressure roughly 90 times that of Earth's at sea level. Venus rotates very slowly, completing one full rotation on its axis every 243.2 Earth days and one orbit around the Sun every 224.7 Earth days. A day on Venus is thus longer than its year! Venus is also unique in the Solar System for retrograde rotation, a phenomenoon where the planet rotates in the opposite direction of its orbit around the Sun.