The hell that hides beneath the beautiful appearance of the planet Venus

Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun, an object so bright in our sky that we often mistake it for a star.

The surface of the planet Mars and the colossal size of its great canyon, the Valles Marineris
The images of the surface of Mercury that have been captured by the BepiColombo mission

In fact, in J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology, Venus was called Eärendil, the brightest of all the stars (High Elvish: "elenion ancalima"). It is commonly known as the Morning Star, because it is one of only three celestial objects that can be seen from Earth during the day (the other two are the Sun and the Moon).

Venus has a very beautiful appearance, which is probably why it got its name, which corresponds to the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility. With a size very similar to that of the Earth (it has a diameter of 12,103.6 km, compared to 12,742 km for our planet), the beautiful appearance of Venus is very deceptive. It is the hottest planet in the Solar System, a real hell where life as we know it is impossible.

Venus' appearance is due to its atmosphere, with a cloud cover that surrounds the entire planet. These clouds are not like those on Earth, but are made of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid. Because of this layer of clouds, the planet suffers from a global greenhouse effect, which, combined with its proximity to the sun, results in temperatures of up to 464°C on its surface (remember that paper burns at a temperature of 232ºC, so writing a diary would be impossible on that planet).

The surface of Venus looks very different from the planet with its beautiful cloud cover. Venus has very strong volcanic activity, with massive eruptions that add a large amount of lava to the already deadly cocktail of this world.

One of the curiosities of Venus is that it is the only planet in the Solar System with a retrograde rotation, that is, it rotates in the opposite direction to the Earth. If we lived on Venus we would see the Sun rising in the west and setting in the east. In addition, Venus rotates very slowly: its rotation takes the equivalent of 243.02 Earth days. Paradoxically, its translation (the time it takes to go around the Sun) is faster than its rotation: 225 Earth days.

The space race has paid a lot of attention to Venus. In fact, it was the first celestial body to be visited after the Moon. After all, this planet has been known to humans since prehistoric times because of its brightness. The first spacecraft successfully sent to Venus was NASA's Mariner 2, launched on August 27, 1962, which reached the vicinity of the planet on December 14 of that year.

The first landing of a spacecraft on Venus was carried out by the Soviet Venera 7 on December 15, 1970 (the USSR devoted many attempts to the exploration of that planet, with many failed missions). It was the first spacecraft to land on another planet. The spacecraft was equipped with a parachute for its descent, but it failed and ended up reaching the surface of the planet in free fall. After its hard landing, there was total silence for several weeks, until data was received transmitted by the spacecraft, which was only able to transmit for 20 minutes after touching the surface, possibly being destroyed due to the brutal conditions of that planet.

If you want to know more about this planet, I encourage you to watch this video published by the channel Astrum which addresses very interesting details about Venus: