Who is venus named after

Others believe that Venus possessed oceans, but due to the high concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is theorized that the planet was covered in a carbon dioxide fluid that eventually evaporated.

Recently it has been discovered that Venus has a large vortex at both its poles. The altitude is estimated to be about 59 km which is just above the cloud deck and the air pressure and temperature are tolerable for Earth standards. A few scientists have speculated that thermoacidophilic extremophile microorganisms might exist in the lower-temperature, acidic upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere.

In August , astronomers reported that newly discovered long-term pattern of absorbance and albedo changes in the atmosphere of the planet Venus are caused by "unknown absorbers", which may be chemicals or even large colonies of microorganisms high up in the atmosphere of Venus, it remains to be seen.

Theories suggest that Venus might once have had a moon, which formed after a collision. After this, a second collision occurred that shattered the moon. It is believed that even this moon actually collided into Venus thus its unusual rotation. Due to its proximity it will always be a target for future studies and even possible colonization. Missions are still ongoing there, even recently in November , NASA received some designs of a stingray-like-ship that could better observe and analyze Venus by a team at the University at Buffalo.

It can be seen even in a clear midday sky, and it is more easily visible when the Sun is low on the horizon or setting. Classic poets such as Homer, Sappho and Virgil have written about the planet. Venus Facts Spinning in the opposite direction to most planets, Venus is the hottest planet, and one of the brightest objects in the sky.

Home » Planets » Terrestrial Planets » Venus. Galileo saw Venus through a telescope and determined it had phases similar to the Moon. This helped support the Copernican view that planets orbited the Sun and not vice versa as previously believed.

It is the only planet named after a female deity and it is the brightest planet in the Solar System. Though it can easily be seen, its surface is hidden by thick clouds thus it was for a long time believed that it was similar to Earth. More than about 62 degrees hotter than Mercury, the closest planet to the sun. It was then concluded that Venus has the hottest surface out of all the planets and the hopes that it resembled Earth, were shattered.

Its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect greatly contributing to the planets high temperatures.

Venus has a mass of 4. Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun, at a distance of On average it can get as close as 25 million miles or 40 million kilometers to Earth. It takes Venus days to complete one trip around the sun or in other words one Venusian year is Earth days.

One Venusian day or rotation is longer than one Venusian year: One Venusian day is about Earth days. This is the slowest rotation of any planet making it the most spherical object after the sun.

At the equator the planet is rotating at about 6. It has the least eccentric orbit, orbiting nearly in a perfect circle. Because of its brightness, Venus has been the most confused object in the sky. Venus has mountains, valleys, and tens of thousands of volcanoes.

The ingredients are all there, or at least, they used to be. By studying why our neighbor world went in such a different direction with regard to habitability, we could find out what could make other worlds right. Temperature, air pressure, and chemistry are much more congenial up high, in those thick, yellow clouds.

The ancient Romans could easily see seven bright objects in the sky: the Sun, the Moon, and the five brightest planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They named the objects after their most important gods. Venus, the third brightest object after the Sun and Moon, was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Persistent, dark streaks appear. Scientists are so far unable to explain why these streaks remain stubbornly intact, even amid hurricane-force winds.

They also have the odd habit of absorbing ultraviolet radiation. The most likely explanations focus on fine particles, ice crystals, or even a chemical compound called iron chloride. Although it's much less likely, another possibility considered by scientists who study astrobiology is that these streaks could be made up of microbial life, Venus-style.

These handy chemical cloaks would also absorb potentially damaging ultraviolet light and re-radiate it as visible light. There is much, it would seem, that she can teach us. Our nearness to Venus is a matter of perspective. The planet is nearly as big around as Earth — 7, miles 12, kilometers across, versus 7, miles 12, kilometers for Earth.

From Earth, Venus is the brightest object in the night sky after our own Moon. The ancients, therefore, gave it great importance in their cultures, even thinking it was two objects: a morning star and an evening star. At its nearest to Earth, Venus is some 38 million miles about 61 million kilometers distant.

One more trick of perspective: how Venus looks through binoculars or a telescope. The complete cycle, however, new to full, takes days, while our Moon takes just a month. And it was this perspective, the phases of Venus first observed by Galileo through his telescope, that provided the key scientific proof for the Copernican heliocentric nature of the Solar System. Spending a day on Venus would be quite a disorienting experience — that is, if your ship or suit could protect you from temperatures in the range of degrees Fahrenheit Celsius.

For another, because of the planet's extremely slow rotation, sunrise to sunset would take Earth days. And by the way, the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east, because Venus spins backward compared to Earth.

In winter, the tilt means the rays are less direct. No such luck on Venus: Its very slight tilt is only three degrees, which is too little to produce noticeable seasons.

A critical question for scientists who search for life among the stars: How do habitable planets get their start? The close similarities of early Venus and Earth, and their very different fates, provide a kind of test case for scientists who study planet formation.

Similar size, similar interior structure, both harboring oceans in their younger days. Yet one is now an inferno, while the other is the only known world — so far — to play host to abundant life. The factors that set these planets on almost opposite paths began, most likely, in the swirling disk of gas and dust from which they were born. Somehow, 4. Several might well have moved in closer, or farther out, as the solar system formed. If we could slice Venus and Earth in half, pole to pole, and place them side by side, they would look remarkably similar.

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