Venus

For the Roman goddess, see Venus (mythology). For other uses of this term, see Venus (disambiguation).

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Venus is the second planet from the Sun. A terrestrial planet, it is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet", as the two are very similar in size and bulk composition.

Name

Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love, Aphrodite.

The adjective Venusian is commonly used for Venus, but the Latin adjective is Venereal, which is avoided because of its modern association with sexually transmitted diseases. Some astronomers use Cytherean, which comes from Cytherea, another name for Aphrodite in ancient Greek Mythology. Other less common adjectives include Venerean, Venerian, and Veneran.

The Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese cultures refer to the planet as the metal star, 金星, based on the Five Elements.

Orbital characteristics

Orbit

Although all planets' orbits are elliptical, Venus's orbit is the closest to circular, with an eccentricity of less than 1%.

As Venus is closer to the Sun than the Earth, it always appears in roughly the same direction from Earth as the Sun (the greatest elongation is 47.8°), so on Earth it can usually only be seen a few hours before sunrise or a few hours after sunset. However, when at its brightest, Venus may be seen during the daytime, making it the only heavenly body that can be seen both day and night besides the Moon (except for the occasional nova, such as the one that created the Crab Nebula). It is sometimes referred to as the "Morning Star" or the "Evening Star", and when it is visible in dark skies it is by far the brightest star-like object in the sky.

The cycle between one maximum elongation and the next lasts 584 days. After these 584 days Venus is visible in a position 72 degrees away from the previous one. Since 5 * 584 = 2920, which is equivalent to 8 * 365 Venus returns to the same point in the sky every 8 years (minus two leap days). This was known as the Sothis cycle in ancient Egypt, and was familiar to the Maya as well. Another association is with the Moon, because 2920 days equal almost exactly 99 lunations (29.5 * 99 = 2920.5).

At inferior conjunction, Venus can get closer to earth than any other planet--little more than 100 times the Moon's average distance. On December 16th, 1850, Venus reached the lowest distance to earth since 1800, with a value of 0.26413854 AU = 39,514,827 kilometres. This will be the closest approach of Venus to Earth until December 16th, 2101 when Venus will reach a distance of 0.26431736 AU = 39,514,578 kilometres to earth.

Rotation

Venus has a slow retrograde rotation, meaning it rotates from east to west, instead of west to east as most of the other major planets do. (Pluto and Uranus also have retrograde rotation, though Uranus's axis, tilted at 97.86 degrees, almost lies in its orbital plane.) A slow retrograde rotation is thought to have developed as a consequence of tidal forces, friction, and solar heating of Venus' thick atmosphere. [1] If the Sun could be seen from Venus' surface, it would appear to rise in the west and set in the east for a day-night cycle of 116.75 Earth days (Venus' mean solar day), and a Venusian year would thus last 1.92 Venusian "days".

In addition to this unusual retrograde rotation, the periods of Venus' rotation and of its orbit are synchronized in such a way that it always presents the same face toward Earth when the two planets are at their closest approach (5.001 Venusian solar days between each inferior conjunction). This may simply be a coincidence, but there is some speculation that this may be the result of tidal locking, with tidal forces affecting Venus' rotation whenever the planets get close enough together —although the tides raised by Venus on Earth are vanishingly small.

Physical characteristics

Atmosphere

File:Venus-pioneer-uv-black.jpg

Ultraviolet image of Venus' clouds as seen by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (February 26, 1979). The immense C- or Y-shaped features which are visible only in these wavelengths are individually short lived, but reform often enough to be considered a permanent feature of Venus' clouds.

Venus has an atmosphere consisting mainly of carbon dioxide and a small amount of nitrogen, with a pressure at the surface about 90 times that of Earth (a pressure equivalent to a depth of 1 kilometer under Earth's oceans); its atmosphere is also roughly 90 times more massive than ours. This enormously CO₂-rich atmosphere results in a strong greenhouse effect that raises the surface temperature more than 400 °C (750 °F) above what it would be otherwise, causing temperatures at the surface to reach extremes as great as 500 °C (930 °F) in low elevation regions near the planet's equator. This makes Venus's surface hotter than Mercury's, even though Venus is nearly twice as distant from the Sun and only receives 25% of the solar irradiance (2613.9 W/m² in the upper atmosphere, and just 1071.1 W/m² at the surface). Owing to the thermal inertia and convection of its dense atmosphere, the temperature does not vary significantly between the night and day sides of Venus despite its extremely slow rotation of less than one rotation per Venusian year, meaning that, at the equator, Venus' surface rotates at a mere 6.5 km/h (4 mph). Upper atmosphere winds circling the planet approximately every 4 days help distribute the heat to other areas on the surface.

The solar irradiance is so much lower at the surface of Venus because the planet's thick cloud cover reflects the majority of the sunlight back into space. This prevents most of the sunlight from ever heating the surface. Venus's bolometric albedo is approximately 60%, and its visual light albedo is even greater. Thus, despite being closer to the Sun than Earth, the surface of Venus is not as well heated and even less well lit by the Sun. In the absence of any greenhouse effect, the temperature at the surface of Venus would be quite similar to Earth. A common conceptual misunderstanding regarding Venus is the mistaken belief that its thick cloud cover traps heat, as the opposite is actually true. The cloud cover keeps the planet much cooler than it would be otherwise. The immense quantity of CO₂ in the atmosphere is what traps the heat by the greenhouse mechanism.

There are strong 300 km/h (200 mph) winds at the cloud tops, but winds at the surface are very slow, no more than a few miles per hour. However, owing to the high density of the atmosphere at Venus's surface, even such slow winds exert a significant amount of force against obstructions. The clouds are mainly composed of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid droplets and cover the planet completely, obscuring any surface details from the human eye. The temperature at the tops of these clouds is approximately −45 °C (−50 °F). The mean surface temperature of Venus, as given by NASA, is 464 °C (864 °F). The minimal value of the temperature, listed in the table, refers to cloud tops —the surface temperature is never below 400 °C (750 °F). (This makes the surface temperature hot enough to melt lead.)

The atmosphere also contains hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) and carbonyl sulfide (COS). Hydrogen sulfide reacts with sulfur dioxide, which implies that some process must be creating these components. It is unclear how the carbonyl sulfide could be formed--it is often a sign of biological activity. Some have suggested that microbes exist in the clouds (which also contain droplets of water), and produce these components from water, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. New Scientist, Sept. 28, 2002, p. 16

Surface features

File:Venus-venera13-right.jpg

Color image taken from the surface of Venus by the Soviet Venera 13 lander

Venus has two major continent-like highlands on its surface, rising over vast plains. The northern highland is named Ishtar Terra and has Venus's highest mountains, named the Maxwell Montes (roughly 2 km taller than Mount Everest) after James Clerk Maxwell, which surround the plateau Lakshmi Planum. Ishtar Terra is about the size of Australia. In the southern hemisphere is the larger Aphrodite Terra, about the size of South America. Between these highlands are a number of broad depressions, including Atalanta Planitia, Guinevere Planitia, and Lavinia Planitia. With the exception of Maxwell Montes, all surface features on Venus are named after real or mythological females. Venus' thick atmosphere causes meteors to decelerate as they fall toward the surface, and even large meteors will strike the surface at too low a speed to form an impact crater if they have less than a certain threshold kinetic energy. Smaller objects also break up in the dense atmosphere before hitting the ground, and thus no impact crater smaller than about 3 km (2 mi) in diameter can form.

Nearly 90% of Venus's surface appears to consist of recently (in the geological sense) solidified basaltic lava, with very few meteorite craters. The oldest features present on Venus seem to be only around 800 million years old, with most of the terrain being considerably younger (though still not less than several hundred million years for the most part). This suggests that Venus underwent a major resurfacing event in the not too distant geological past. The interior of Venus is probably similar to that of Earth: an iron core about 3000 km in radius, with a molten rocky mantle making up the majority of the planet. Recent results from the Magellan gravity data indicate that Venus's crust is stronger and thicker than had previously been assumed. It is theorized that Venus does not have mobile plate tectonics as Earth does, but instead undergoes massive volcanic upwellings at regular intervals that inundate its surface with fresh lava. Other recent findings suggest that Venus is still volcanically active in isolated geological hotspots.

Venus's intrinsic magnetic field has been found very weak compared to other planets in the solar system. This may be due to its slow rotation being insufficient to drive an internal dynamo of liquid iron. As a result, solar wind strikes Venus's upper atmosphere without mediation. It is thought that Venus originally had as much water as Earth, but that water vapor in the upper atmosphere was split into hydrogen and oxygen due to solar wind. Therefore, the hydrogen escaped into space because of its low molecular mass; the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium (a heavier isotope of hydrogen which doesn't escape as quickly) in Venus's atmosphere seems to support this theory. Molecular oxygen is thought to have combined with atoms in the crust (large amounts of oxygen, however, remain in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide). Because of dryness, Venus's rocks are much harder than Earth's, which leads to steeper mountains, cliffs and other features. Venus has many active volcanoes similar to those on Earth, so there is a lot of lava present on the surface. There are also other bodies that spout lava, known as arachnoids, for their spiderweb-like look. They are quite different from the volcanoes on earth, and are formed differently too. There are about 30 arachnoids on Venus.

Venus' moon

Venus was once thought to possess a moon, named Neith after the chief goddess of Sais, Egypt (whose veil no mortal raised), first observed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1672. German astronomers called the moon Kleinchen (literally "tiny"), and sporadic sightings by astronomers continued until 1892. These sightings have since been discredited, and are thought to have been either spurious internal reflections, mostly faint stars that happened to be in the right place at the right time, or maybe even asteroids passing by the planet. Venus is now known to be moonless.

Observations and explorations of Venus

Venus sky movement patterns have been observed several times within the past 4000 years by a number of people, including the Greeks.

For elongations and other aspects, see Aspects of Venus.

Life on Venus

Space probes in the 1960's made it reasonably clear that the surface of Venus is far too hot to support life as we know it. However, the cloud cover supports fairly life-friendly conditions at higher altitudes. Some speculate that spores from Earth could hitch a ride on small passing asteroids and survive a trip to Venus's atmosphere.

Recent spectrographic observations have found carbonyl sulfide in the atmosphere of Venus, a chemical that is very difficult to make via natural processes and is usually associated with life.[2][3]

Venus in human culture

Mythology

The pentagram has long been associated with the planet Venus and the worship of the goddess. It is most likely to have originated from the observations of prehistoric astronomers. When viewed from Earth, the successive conjunctions of Venus plot the points of a pentagram around the Sun in an eight-year cycle (see Orbit).

Venus was known to ancient Babylonians around 1600 BC, and to the Mayan civilization (the Mayans developed a religious calendar based on Venus's motion) and must have been known long before in prehistoric times, given that it is the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon. The Maasai people in Africa named the planet Kileken, and have a myth about it called "The Orphan Boy." The Morning Star was called the Bearer of Light ("phōsphoros" or "eōsphoros" in Greek and "Lucifer" in Latin, a term later used of the fallen angel cast out of heaven, see Isaiah 14:12). To the Jews it is known as Noga ("shining"), Ayeleth-ha-Shakhar ("deer of the dawn") and Kochav-ha-'Erev ("star of the evening").

♀

Its symbol is the sign also used in biology for the female sex, a stylized representation of the goddess Venus's hand mirror: a circle with a small cross underneath (Unicode: ♀). The Venus symbol also represents femininity, and in ancient alchemy stood for copper. Alchemists constructed the symbol from a circle (representing spirit) above a cross (representing matter).

The association with sex and femininity is supposed to relate to the period of 266 days between the conjunction and maximum elongation of Venus, which corresponds more or less to the length of human pregnancy.

Fiction

Until it was penetrated by probes, Venus's opaque cloud layer gave science fiction writers free rein in imagining the planet's surface, and they frequently imagined it to be Earthlike. There are some religious sects who believe that Hell may be located on Venus. Its extremely high surface temperature and impenetrable cloud cover cause people to believe that the fires of Hell burn on the surface, obscured from our earthly view. Conversely, other sects consider Venus to be some form of paradise or an advanced secret base for angels/aliens to operate from.

Ray Bradbury's short story collection, The Illustrated Man, contains a piece titled The Long Rain. In the story, four men search for a 'sun dome' on the surface of Venus, as it never stops raining.
In Olaf Stapledon's epic Last and First Men (1930), Venus is an oceanic idyll where humans evolve the power of flight.
In the mythology of Middle-earth (1937), by J. R. R. Tolkien, Venus is the Star of Eärendil. The star was created when Eärendil the Mariner was set in the sky on his ship, with a Silmaril bound to his brow. In fact, Tolkien chose the name directly from the ancient Old English word for the planet Venus.
In H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos (1928–), there are mentions of the 'Lords of Venus', and conflicting indications that the Serpent People originated there.
Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a series of five books on Venus (the Venus series), featuring hero Carson Napier, who discovers that Venus (or Amtor, as it is known by the Venusians) is a world of sky-high trees, warring kingdoms and princesses in need of rescue. [4]
The H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling short story 'In the Walls of Eryx' (1939), takes place on Venus, but is not considered part of the Cthulhu Mythos.
In Robert A. Heinlein's Future History, Venus is portrayed as a world covered entirely in hot, steamy swamps, which are used to explain the constant, unyielding cloud cover. Humans can live on Venus, but they find it very uncomfortable, and the few who settle there mainly are there for growing and harvesting local crops for export. The native Venusians are a primitive, yet peaceful people who tolerate humanity's presence and colonization.
The second book of the Space Trilogy (1938–1945) by C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (1943) takes place on Venus (called by the natives Perelandra), the site of a second garden of Eden.
In the military science fiction classic Clash by Night (1943) by Henry Kuttner (writing as Lawrence O'Donnell) and C. L. Moore, underwater city-states hire mercenary companies and their battleships to fight their wars on the surface of venus.
Venus was the home planet of the Mekon, arch-enemy of the 1950s comic book hero Dan Dare.
Many science-fiction movies and serials of the '50s and '60s, such as Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Space Ship Sappy and Space Patrol, have used Venus' namesake goddess and her domain to contrive planetary populations of nubile women welcoming (or attacking) all-male astronaut crews.
In some of the early Perry Rhodan stories (1961-1962), Venus is a jungle world inhabited by dinosaurs and other monstrous creatures, and is the site of a huge, ancient alien fortress.
In the John W. Campbell novel The Black Star Passes, Venus is the home of an advanced civilization that creates enormous aircraft, among other things.
In the Noon Universe created by the Soviet science fiction writers Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, Venus is depicted as an extremely harsh planet covered by strange flora and fauna but also very rich in minerals and heavy metals. The novel The Land of Crimson Clouds (Strana Bagrovykh Tuch in the original) describes the first successful manned mission to Venus, although a full-scaled colonization of the planet was not initiated until much later (in 2119; see Noon: 22nd Century).
Venus is the location of several Starfleet Academy training facilities and terraforming stations in the fictional Star Trek universe (1966–).
In Jacqueline Susann's Yargo (1979), Venus is inhabited by bees that are as big as horses.
Venus is briefly mentioned in Arthur C. Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997).
A presumably terraformed Venus was the setting of one episode of the anime Cowboy Bebop (1998). In the show, Venus was revealed to be an arid but habitable world. Much of the population lived in floating cities in the sky. In the cartoon Exosquad, terraformed Venus was portrayed as one of the three habitable planets in the solar system (the others being Earth and Mars).
In the Japanese anime series, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (1992), Sailor Venus is a soldier representing the planet of the same name. In mythology, Venus is the Roman goddess of love (Aphrodite in Greek), therefore, Sailor Venus's attacks and weapons (e.g. Venus Love Me Chain and Venus Love and Beauty Shock) represent the idea of love and femininity. Her image colours are gold and orange--similar to the colour of the planet. Also, on her forehead is the planet's symbol.
A more scientifically accurate depiction of the planet is offered in Ben Bova's novel Venus (2000, ISBN 031287216X)-
The terraforming of Venus provides the setting of Pamela Sargent's Venus series, Venus of Dreams, Venus of Shadows, and Children of Venus.

References

Arnett, Bill (2005). Venus. Retrieved March 27, 2005.
European Space Agency (2005). Venus Express overview. Retrieved March 27, 2005.
Grayzeck, Ed (2004). Venus Fact Sheet. NASA. Retrieved March 27, 2005.
Grieger, Bjoern (2004). Picture “Real Venus”. Retrieved March 27, 2005.
The Maya Astronomy Page (2002). Venus. Retrieved March 27, 2005.
Mitchell, Don P. (2004). The Soviet Exploration of Venus. Retrieved March 27, 2005.
Rosenthal, David. (2003). THE SOUTHERNMOST RISE OF VENUS AT UXMAL, 1997. Retrieved March 27, 2005.
Vienna University of Technology (2004). Venus Three-Dimensional Views. Retrieved March 27, 2005.
Mallama, A. (1996). "Schroeter's Effect and the twilight model for Venus". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 106 (1): 16–18.
3D VRML Venus globe
Venus Fact Sheet

Pentagram

External links

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