Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the hottest world in the Solar System, where surface temperatures reach a furnace-like 465°C beneath a perpetual veil of sulfuric clouds.
Often called Earth's sister planet for its similar size and mass, Venus rotates backwards on its axis—so slowly that a single day lasts longer than its entire 225-day year.
An immense atmosphere of carbon dioxide with thick clouds of sulfuric acid. Surface pressure is 92 times that of Earth — equivalent to standing nearly a kilometer underwater.
A runaway greenhouse. Surface temperatures hover around 465°C (870°F) day and night, hot enough to melt lead, with no seasonal variation due to its near-zero axial tilt.
The brightest natural object in Earth's night sky after the Moon, Venus reflects 70% of incoming sunlight off its mirror-like cloud deck.
Like Mercury, Venus has no moons. It travels its slow retrograde dance through the inner solar system as a solitary, cloud-wrapped sentinel.
Beneath an unbroken canopy of sulfuric clouds lies a landscape no human eye has ever directly seen. Soviet Venera probes survived only minutes on the surface — the longest, just over two hours — before being crushed and cooked into silence.
Venus is a warning written across the sky: a world that may once have hosted oceans, transformed by runaway warming into a hellscape. Studying it is studying the futures Earth must avoid.
From its retrograde dawn to the crushing pressures of its forgotten plains, Venus reminds us that proximity does not promise hospitality. Our sister planet keeps her secrets behind a curtain of acid and fire.