The Planet Venus
Venus is the second planet from the sun, which means that if you are standing on the surface of venus, the sun would appear to be in the same place in the sky as it would be if you were standing on earth. But venus is very different from earth. For one thing, it is covered with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets. For another, it spins so slowly that a day lasts longer than a year.
But what really sets venus apart is its atmosphere. It is about ninety times as dense as earth’s atmosphere, which means that if you were to stand on the surface of venus, you would weigh ninety times as much as you do on earth.
The gravity on venus is so strong that if you jumped off a building there, you wouldn’t quite make it all the way to the ground before your feet started to slow down and eventually stopped altogether. A few feet above the ground you would hover motionless in midair for about an hour before sinking down. And because of all that extra atmosphere surrounding you on every side, every step would feel like walking through molasses.
Venus has been called Earth’s sister planet. They are similar in size, and Earth probably got its water from the same source as Venus.
Venus is very different from Earth, however. Like the moon, it rotates slowly backwards, so that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. The surface is hot enough to melt lead, and covered with craters–but there are no signs of plate tectonics, or any active volcanoes. We have no idea what causes this extreme weather or surface activity.