Although it is our closest neighbor, yet we do not much about Venus until recently known. Ancient civilizations but the persecution it was long ago the. Each had unique beliefs.
A planet with many names, we know it as Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. The Greeks believed that it was two separate entities. Hesperus when they saw it in the morning, phosphorus when they saw it in the evening. Maya thought that Venus of Kukulkan, God was. Aztecs believed that it was Quetzalcoatl. They have to admire it for the interesting statements, came to describe it with this entity in their night sky!
Venus is an inner planet, the second from the Sun. It is the second brightest object in the night sky after the moon. Although you can watch it without tools, you can see not even with a telescope very much as it is covered in thick clouds, to reflect the light back. The only way to see past the clouds, is with a radar system.
In some ways Venus is similar to earth are almost the same size almost have almost the same density and gravity. Both have made thick atmospheres of gases. However, there must be no Moon, rings, or a magnetic field. Venus has a similar composition to the Earth as well.
Astronomers and scientists were curious to know what was in the clouds. Shuttle Atlantis rose two spacecraft to the space to find more about the surface, clouds and other data. In May 1989 on the STS-30 mission, Magellan to Venus rose orbit. In October 1989, Galileo was on the mission STS-34. Although Galileo's main goal was to explore Jupiter, it have to images of the clouds infrared a flyby of Venus in February 1990. Magellan named after the 16th century Explorer Ferdinand Magellan. Although launched Magellan was first it not went into orbit around Venus until August 1990. Magellan mapped the surface with a SAR synthetic aperture radar.
From these and other probes and spacecraft, we have learned a number of things. The surface is mostly flat with some deep, dusty and dry valleys. It is very hot, with a surface temperature of 860 °. This makes Venus the hottest planet in the solar system! Because the atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide, Venus is uninhabitable. The air pressure is almost 100 times, the Earth. To give you an idea of how much that is, would the spacecraft that landed on the basis of a high pressure fail on the surface. Sometimes it rains on Venus, sulfuric acid and water vapor. Due to the high temperatures and dense clouds Venus, what some scientists "The greenhouse effect gone wild" call. Heat from the Sun is, but unable to escape what that means is. Very simply put, the clouds to keep the heat in.
We have learned much about Venus in the last centuries. We see are still in the evening or morning depending on what stage it is in. But somehow it seems even more mysterious the way it is hiding behind his clouds.
If you want to learn more about Atlantis and the other orbiter, visit SpaceShuttleFacts.com today!
Do you have wanted to visit at all Venus? Or perhaps one of the other planets? Perhaps an entirely different Galaxy? Check astronomer section on the page "Space shuttle stuff" of the SpaceShuttleFacts.com the 3D out to learn more!
