Venus, the twin planet of the Earth.

Twin of the Earth, Venus, with its 12 104 km of diameter, is situated to 108 millions of kilometres from the Sun, (against the 150 millions of kilometres that separates the Earth from the Sun).

On the contrary of the other planets, Venus is the only planet in the solar system that turns in the same way of a clock’s hand. Venus takes 243 terrestrial days to do spin on itself, and he takes 225 days to turn around the Sun. This means that a day in our nearest planet lasts for more than a year, because he spins more slowly on his axis than around the Sun.

Venus’ exploration

This planet was the first to be explored by sounding lines, which have been thrown to Venus since 1962. Since then, Venus has been visited for more than 20 sounding lines, some of them carrying with them landers. This landers, thrown with parachutes to the surface of the planet, couldn’t last for more than 110 minutes. The reason is that Venus has so high temperatures that they couldn’t hardly resist to them.

Some recent projects want to send sounding lines in purpose to cartography precisely the planet and search for some small traces of water, either on the surface or in the subsoil. They also want to study better its very dense atmosphere and sound its subsoil.

Other more ambitious projects try to carry out a study Venus’ surface. They want to do it by flying over the planet with inflatable drones yet for some years in the future. Another of these projects wants to send humans at 50 kilometres of Venus’ surface, where the temperature is similar to the Earth’s. Normally, these flies would be for scientific study, although maybe in some years there will be enterprises which will organize this travels in tourist purpose.

A very dense atmosphere and a climate change

Venus has a very dense atmosphere. His atmosphere is compound of gases with greenhouse effect, which provoke the named greenhouse effect. This effect is also produced nowadays in the Earth due to the pollution, although it is not as big as the greenhouse effect in Venus. Some of the gases that causes the greenhouse effects are: methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and many other gases that provoke the same effect. For this reason, in Venus, it is registered the biggest known greenhouse effect, producing a big climate change.

Due to this climate change, the temperature in our twin planet can arrive to 499,85ºC, being the hottest planet in the solar system, tough Mercury is closer to the Sun, he hasn’t a very big greenhouse effect. This high temperature in Venus is due to the greenhouse gases, which retain the light from the Sun. Apart, the high temperatures are also the responsible of that in the surface of the planet, recovered with volcanos, here is lava running on it, making Venus to be an inhabitable planet.

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