Venus Essay

Venus is the second planet from the sun and the sixth largest. Venus’

orbit is the most circular of any planet, with an eccentricy of less than 1%.

Venus, perhaps because it is the brightest of planets known to the ancients,

Is named after the Greek goddess of love and beauty. The planet of Venus

has been known since prehistoric times and is the brightest object in the

sky with the exception of the sun and the moon.

Venus’ rotation is somewhat unusual in that it is both very slow ( 243

Earth days per Venus day) and retrograde. In addition, the periods of

Venus’ rotation and of its orbit are synchronized such that it always

presents the same face toward Earth when the two planets are at their

closest approach. The pressure

Recently announced findings show that

Venus is still volcanically active, but only in a few hot spots. For the most part it has been geologically rather quiet for the past few hundred million

years despite their presence.

Studying Venus

The brightness of Venus and it’s periodic proximity to the Earth

have made Venus an easy target for advances in astronomical observations.

Venus has been the object of telescopic observation from the beginning.

The appearance of the phases of Venus by Galileo was a milestone in the

modern understanding of the solar system. Early measurements of the

speed of light were derived from observations of the transit of Venus

across the solar disk as seen from the Earth. Venus was also the first solar

system object from which radar signals were first bounced off in the late

1960’s. The first radar observations of another planet from an orbiting

platform were made from an orbiting platform were made at Venus by the

Venera 15 spacecraft and were followed by Pioneer Venus Orbiter and

subsequently by Magellan.

The launch of the Mariner 2 spacecraft in 1962 started the modern

era of Venus exploration by space-craft. Since then, Venus has