[For Seniors] Enjoyable Brain Training! Trivia Quiz & Fun Facts about Venus

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Venus has no natural satellites, that is, no natural celestial bodies that orbit the planet. This is a characteristic shared only by Mercury and Venus. Earth has the Moon, but Venus has no satellites.

about 460°C

The surface of Venus is extremely hot due to the greenhouse effect, reaching about 460°C regardless of day or night. 460°C is hot enough to melt lead. Venus is known as the hottest planet in the solar system.

Because it strongly reflects the sunlight.

Venus appears very bright to us because its thick atmosphere and clouds reflect sunlight well. Venus itself isn’t emitting light; it’s bouncing the Sun’s light back like a mirror. By the way, the clouds covering Venus are made of sulfuric acid that contains sulfur.

It's raining sulfuric acid.

Venus is covered by hot clouds, and remarkably, those clouds are made of concentrated sulfuric acid. These sulfuric acid clouds form an unbroken layer across the entire Venusian sky, and droplets of sulfuric acid fall from them like rain. However, this rain never reaches the surface because it evaporates in Venus’s extreme heat.

superrotation

The strong winds observed in Venus’s atmosphere are called “super-rotation.” This refers to the phenomenon in which the atmosphere flows around the planet at speeds far faster than Venus’s rotational speed. Those wind speeds reportedly reach as high as 400 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 60 kilometers.

Almost the same size

Venus has a diameter of about 12,104 km, while Earth’s diameter is about 12,742 km. In other words, Venus’s diameter is almost the same as Earth’s—about 95% as large. Its mass is also similar to Earth’s, and its internal structure is considered to be nearly the same as well.

Because Venus orbits on an inner path closer to the Sun than Earth

Venus orbits the Sun on an inner path closer to the Sun than Earth. Therefore, when Venus is in its full phase, it lies directly behind the Sun from Earth’s perspective and cannot be fully observed due to the Sun’s light. In other words, as seen from Earth, Venus goes through phases, and it cannot be observed when it is in a perfectly full, round phase like a full moon.