Friday 16 October 2009

Venus Facts

8 comments:

s-j said...

Venus (Greek: Aphrodite; Babylonian: Ishtar) is the goddess of love and beauty. The planet is so named probably because it is the brightest of the planets known to the ancients. (With a few exceptions, the surface features on Venus are named for female figures.)

Venus has been known since prehistoric times. It is the brightest object in the sky except for the Sun and the Moon. Like Mercury, it was popularly thought to be two separate bodies: Eosphorus as the morning star and Hesperus as the evening star, but the Greek astronomers knew better.

Since Venus is an inferior planet, it shows phases when viewed with a telescope from the perspective of Earth. Galileo's observation of this phenomenon was important evidence in favor of Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the solar system.

The first spacecraft to visit Venus was Mariner 2 in 1962. It was subsequently visited by many others (more than 20 in all so far), including Pioneer Venus and the Soviet Venera 7 the first spacecraft to land on another planet, and Venera 9 which returned the first photographs of the surface. Most recently, the orbiting US spacecraft Magellan produced detailed maps of Venus' surface using radar

Mr Gray said...

good detail s-j. any more for us?

Anna:) said...

Venus and Mercury are the only two planets that have no moons!:)

Lydia said...

Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system:)

Rebecca Wilkinson said...

Venus has never been found to have any moons.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! S-J you wrote a huge passage it is great.

Rebecca Wilkinson said...

Venus is the brightest planet in our sky and can sometimes be seen if you know where to look. It is the solar system's brightest planet - yellow clouds of sulfuric acid reflect the sun's light brightly.

AdamD said...

You have wrote the most in the hole blog s_j.

Chloe M said...

Venus surface is very hot about 400 degress celsius.Even though Venus is very cloudy,it is simply to hot for rain to form.