Venusian b linders!
RUSSIA has laid claim to Venus – days after scientists said there could be alien life living on the planet. As we told yesterday, Kremlin chiefs have warned off rivals after saying it was theirs as they previously
VENUS is the second planet from the Sun and has been observed by astronomers since ancient times. The first observation using a telescope was made in 1610 by Galileo.
The planet is named after the ancient Roman goddess of love and beauty ( left), and is the only world named after a female deity.
DESPITE being further away from the Sun than Mercury, it has a hotter surface temperature – a scorching 462° C.
ONE day on Venus is longer than a year. It takes 243 Earth days to rotate once on its axis, but the planet’s orbit around the Sun takes 225 Earth days.
VENUS is referred to as the sister planet to Earth because their size and mass are so similar. The orbit of Venus is also the closest to Earth’s of any other body in our solar system.
THE shortest time a spacecraft has taken to get to Venus from Earth is 97 days. Most take about four months.
IT is the most visited planet of our solar system; more than 40 space capsules have been sent there to explore it.
VENUS has a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth’s, and the landed a probe there. Now the Daily Star has hit back by claiming Uranus as our own.
But what do you know about Venus? presents 15 fascinating facts... pressure sustained on the planet is similar to what is experienced at around half a mile deep in Earth’s oceans.
AFTER the Moon and Sun, Venus is the third brightest object in the night sky as seen from Earth. It’s so bright because its thick clouds reflect 70% of the sunlight that reaches it back into space.
BECAUSE of its brightness, it is frequently mistaken for a UFO. Some people believe the Star of Bethlehem, which the Three Wise Men saw in the Nativity story, was Venus.
IN 2011, an Air Canada pilot mistook Venus for an oncoming aircraft and sent his plane into an emergency dive to avoid a midair collision.
INSPIRATION: Bananarama, War Of The Worlds and an oncoming aircraft
THERE are more volcanoes on Venus than on any other planet in the solar system – more than 1,600 on its surface.
WE can see Venus cross in front of the Sun. Mercury is the only other planet we can see doing this from Earth. HORROR writer Stephen King’s short story The Cursed Expedition is about a Venus that was alive and ate spaceships, while the planet is also referred to in H. G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds and J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle- Earth stories.
In 2013, Lady Gaga released her single Venus from the album Artpop, and in 1986 Bananarama had a massive hit with a cover of the Shocking Blue song called Venus.