Its name means beauty, romance, love. But the reality is very different. Venus is the most hellish planet in the Solar System. Goddess of love, this neighbour hides a much more ruthless and hostile face than we imagine. A recent photo “On Approach,” winner of the “Planets, Comets, and Asteroids” prize at the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024, by Tom Williams, has once again put the focus on the centre of Venus, showing what its orbits and appearance are like, and it has left us amazed.
Venus, despite being similar in size and composition to Earth, is very different, it is, rather, a planetary oven.
Next, we are going to talk a little about Venus and why we consider it the most hellish neighbour our planet has.
Hotter than Mercury.
Venus, despite being farther from the Sun, is the hottest planet in the Solar System, surpassing Mercury. It has a very dense atmosphere, composed mostly of carbon dioxide (96.5%, surely they also need electric cars there!).
The curious thing about this CO2 atmosphere is that it traps the planet like a thermal blanket, capturing solar radiation and preventing the heat from escaping into space. Although it may seem like a beautiful planet, which it is, it has clouds of sulfuric acid that reflect sunlight, thus creating an infernal cycle that raises the temperature to unbearable levels: 869 degrees Fahrenheit (465ºC) regardless of whether it is day or night.
In constant boiling
In addition to that atmosphere, Venus is a planet with a lot of volcanic and tectonic activity, of course, this contributes to its infernal environment, solidified lava, active volcanoes, and deformed mountains make for a hostile landscape that makes it impossible to even imagine a hint of life.
What else do we know about Venus?
Not everything is going to be about saying that Venus is hostile, the ancient Romans considered Venus the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility (equivalent to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess). She was associated with seduction, passion, and attraction, protector of lovers, pleasure, and desires, see how it is not all so catastrophic?
The Romans, to name a star, looked at the sky and chose the one that shone the most at night after the moon, maybe you don’t know but Venus is known as the “morning star” because it shines like no other when it gets dark and when it dawns.
This happens because Venus, due to its orbit, never gets too far from the Sun, thus making it shine intensely in the sky.
And in astrology?
Just like the Romans, astrology chose Venus to link it to love, affective relationships, pleasure, and art, if we focus on astrological charts, which are very trendy lately, its position indicates how one lives and seeks love (if you have your Venus in Virgo, Aries, or Scorpio… we wish you lots of luck in your search for love…)
It also rules those born under the sign of Taurus, it is associated, therefore, with earthly pleasures (Taurus is an earth sign).
How many things do we still have to learn about Venus? By the way, we leave you here the winning photo of the contest, enjoy it!
