Venus

After the Sun and Moon, Venus is the brightest object in the sky. It shines either in the evening or morning sky and is also known as the evening or morning star. Venus owes its brightness to a dense cloud cover that reflects sunlight into space. The planet remains hidden under perpetual clouds. It was long believed that temperatures on Venus were moderate and that life could therefore possibly exist there. The surface temperature was measured at the end of the 1950s. It is 477 degrees - so life is not possible there. The reason for the high temperature is the strong greenhouse effect, triggered by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The most complete mapping of Venus was created by the Magellan space probe between 1990 and 1994. The landscape of Venus is characterised by mountains, gorges, craters and a number of volcanoes unequalled on other planets. There are more than 1500 larger and countless smaller volcanoes on Venus. The large amount of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere also indicates volcanic activity on the planet.

Venus rotates in the opposite direction to most other planets, namely clockwise from its north pole. The Sun on Venus therefore rises in the west and sets in the east, if one ever had an opportunity to see it behind the cloud cover. As Venus rotates extremely slowly, one Venus day is paradoxically longer than a whole Venus year.