The document provides an overview of Venus, the second planet from the sun, highlighting its unique characteristics such as its lengthy day compared to its year and its extreme environmental conditions caused by a dense atmosphere predominantly made of carbon dioxide. It discusses Venus's lack of moons, volcanic activity, and the outcomes of various space missions that have explored the planet, including details of the Soviet Union's early probes. Additionally, it explains the significance of Venus's nickname as Earth's 'twin planet' due to similarities in size and gravity.

1. The Inner Planets Part 2
Venus (5th
grade) Created March 2017

2. Venus

3. Goal: I will know some basic
information about the planet
Venus.

4. Rubric:
HP: Absorb 90% or more of this
information in your memory.
P: Absorb 70% or more.
PP: Absorb 60% or more.
MP: Absorb 59% or less.

5. What are some things we
already know about Venus?

6. Venus is one of the inner planets,
along with Mercury, Earth, and
Mars.

7. Venus is the 2nd planet from
the sun.

8. https://youtu.be/z8aBZZnv6y8
Watch this 2:41 min. video on the planets’
orbits around the sun. Keep in mind that
the scale is not accurate. The real scale
is so large, it would be difficult to see each
planet.

9. How long do you think a Venus
year is?
Remember, a planet’s year is
how long it takes it to make 1
orbit (revolution) around the
Sun.

10. A Venus year (the time it takes for Venus to
orbit the Sun 1 time) is 225 Earth days.
A year on Venus
would end on August
13th
.

11. https://youtu.be/f6foCDF6zI0
Here is another video of the planets’
orbiting the Sun.
Pay attention to which direction
Venus rotates.

12. Question:
How does Venus rotate
compared to the other planets?

13. Answer:
Venus rotates in the opposite direction
of the other planets.

14. Knowing that Venus rotates in
the opposite direction as our
own planet, what can you
determine about sunrises and
sunsets on Venus?
Sunrise on Earth Sunset on Earth

15. You’re right, if you think it
means that the Sun rises in the
West, instead of the East!
Conversely, the Sun sets in the
East on Venus, not the West!

16. How long is a day on Venus?

17. It takes Venus a sluggish 243
Earth days to rotate one time on
its axis!

18. That means that a day on
Venus is actually LONGER than
a year on Venus.

19. And, once the Sun rises, it
doesn’t set for about 120 Earth
days!

20. Question:
On Earth, the sun rises in the
East. In which direction does
the sun rise on planet Venus?
Do you remember?

21. Answer:
The sun rises in the West, if
you’re on planet Venus.

22. How Did Venus Get
Its Name?
The Romans believed that
gods and goddesses were
in charge of everything on
Earth. Venus is the
goddess of love, and they
named this planet for her.

23. Venus
Venus has
no moons.
This is how Venus looks from space.

24. Venus looks like this from space. We can
see its clouds that are made of sulfuric acid.
Wind blows these clouds at hurricane
speeds (about 224 mph).

25. If we could see beneath these clouds,
however, Venus would look more like this.

26. How Big Is Venus? Venus is only slightly smaller
than Earth. It also has about the same mass and
gravity as Earth. For this reason, Venus is often
called our “Sister Planet” or our “Twin Planet”.

27. Mercury and Mars are both
scarred by craters.
Mercury Mars
However...
.

28. ...Venus has a relatively smooth surface.
This is a computer-
generated picture of
what Venus looks
like on the surface.
It is based on radar
images.

29. It is likely that Venus’s craters were filled in by lava
from its many volcanoes, giving it a smooth
surface. Venus’s volcanoes are huge compared to
those of Earth.
Maat Mons volcano. This image
was generated from radar data
collected by the Magellan probe.

30. In fact, Venus has more
volcanoes than any other planet
in the solar system.
Active volcano on
Earth.

31. Volcanoes on Venus have created lava flows up to
more than 3,000 miles in length, longer than on
any other planet. (The U.S. is 3,000 miles across.)
Example of a lava flow on Earth.

32. Venus is the hottest world in the solar system. In
some places, it can be as hot as 1,000o
F.

33. Venus’s dense atmosphere is mostly carbon
dioxide that traps heat in a runaway version of the
greenhouse effect. As a result, the average
temperature on Venus reach 8700
F.

34. The atmosphere on Venus is made of 96.5%
carbon dioxide, 3.5% nitrogen, with minor amounts
of sulfur dioxide, argon, water, carbon monoxide,
helium and neon.

35. The atmosphere on
Venus is heavier than
that of any other
planet, leading to a
surface pressure 90
times that of Earth.
A soda can on Venus
would easily be
crushed by the
atmosphere’s
pressure. It would
also get totally melted
away.

36. The surface of Venus is extremely dry. This is
because ultraviolet rays from the sun evaporated
water quickly.
Photograph of Venus’s surface taken from Russian space probe.

37. There is evidence of lightning on Venus. It is not
from water clouds, however, like it is on Earth. It
comes from clouds of sulfuric acid.

38. Venus’s surface is 90% basalt. Basalt is a hard
rock that was once molten lava.
Examples of basalt found on Earth.

39. How do we know this much about Venus? More
than 20 space probes have been sent to Venus.

40. In 1962, NASA launched the Mariner 1 space
probe. It was to be the 1st
probe the U.S. would
send to another planet, but it failed to reach orbit.

41. 5 weeks later, NASA launched Mariner 1’s back-up
probe: Mariner 2.

42. Mariner 2 reached Venus 3 months after its
launch, in which it did a fly-by of the planet.
Artist’s depiction of Mariner 2 in space.

43. This made Mariner 2 the first U.S. probe to reach
another planet.

44. However, it was NOT the 1st
probe to reach Venus.
Can you guess which country sent the 1st
probe to
Venus?

45. It was the Soviet Union (Russia).

46. The Soviet Union
(Russia) launched a
total of 16 space
probes to Venus
starting in 1961 and
ending in 1983.

47. They were named Venera stations. Venera is the
Russian word for Venus. The 1st
probe was the
Venera 1 and the last was the Venera 16.
This is a photo
of Venera 4.

48. Venera 1 was the 1st
space probe to reach
another planet. It did
a fly-by of Venus in
1961, beating the
United States by 1
year.

49. In Nov. 1965, The Soviet Union (Russia) launched
the Venera 3 space probe. It possibly crash-
landed on Venus on March 1, 1966, making
Venera 3 the first spacecraft to crash into the
surface of another planet. However, its
communications systems failed before it reached
the planet.

50. On Aug. 17, 1970, the Soviet Union (Russia)
launched their space probe, Venera 7.

51. Venera 7 entered
Venus’s atmosphere on
Dec. 15, 1970,
becoming the first
probe to ever land on
another planet.
It landed with the help of a
parachute.

52. Each of the Venera
probes to enter Venus’s
atmosphere only lasted
a few hours before
being destroyed by its
extreme heat and
pressure.

53. The first photos of Venus’s surface were sent by Venera 9 and
10. Venera 9 landed on Venus on October 22, 1975 and
operated on the surface of Venus for 53 minutes. Venera 10
landed on October 25 and survived for 65 minutes.

54. A shot of the rocky surface of Venus, taken by the
Soviet Venera 13 mission.

55. The most successful landing missions to Venus
were Venera 13 and Venera 14. They landed on
March 1 and March 5, 1982. They both survived
for more than an hour and managed to send the
first colored images of Venus.

56. Another shot from Venera 13.

59. The U.S. sent 2 more
spacecraft to Venus in
1978. The Pioneer Venus
Orbiter went into orbit
around the planet, while the
Pioneer Venus Multi-Probe
deployed four atmospheric
entry probes to investigate
the atmosphere.

60. In 1985, the Soviet Union (Russia) launched 2 Vega
spacecraft. Each deployed a surface lander and an
instrumented atmospheric balloon.

61. In 1989, the U.S. launched the Magellan mission.
The Magellan probe was actually launched from
the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It used a radar system
to create high-resolution maps of Venus’s surface.

62. In 2005, the European Space Agency launched a probe
called the Venus Express. It was designed to orbit Venus,
and allowed scientists to study Venus’s surface topography
as well as weather patterns. This picture is computer-
generated from data collected by the Venus Express.

63. In 2014, the Venus Express finally ran out of fuel
and began to dive into one of Venus’s polar
regions. Before its crash, it sent back data
revealing that the polar region was VERY cold at
-250 degrees F. The picture below is an artist’s
rendition of its dive into Venus.

64. Okay, it’s time to quiz yourself:
How many moons does Venus
have?

65. Answer:
0 moons

66. Question:
Which is bigger...Venus or
Earth?

67. Answer:
Earth is a tiny bit bigger.

68. Question:
What was the first probe to fly
by Venus, who sent it, and
when?

69. Answer:
The Venera 1 was launched in
1961 by the Soviet Union
(Russia) .

70. Question:
What is Venus’s nickname?
Why is it called that?

71. Answer:
Earth’s “Twin Planet” or “Sister
Planet”. It’s called that because
it has a similar size and
gravitational pull as Earth.

72. Question:
How is Venus’s rotation unique
to all other planets in the Solar
System?

73. Answer:
It rotates (spins) in the opposite
direction.

74. Question:
What is Venus’s surface mostly
made of ? What is its
atmosphere mostly made of?

75. Answer:
The ground is 90% basalt rock
and the atmosphere is 96.5%
carbon dioxide.

76. Question:
If Mercury is closer to the Sun
than Venus, why is Venus the
hottest planet in our Solar
System?

77. Answer:
The huge amount of carbon
dioxide in Venus’s atmosphere
creates a horrible green house
effect. Radiation from the Sun
(think heat) enters, but doesn’t
escape.

78. Question:
What is strange about the
length of a Venus year and a
Venus day?

79. Answer:
A Venus day is actually longer
than a Venus year.

80. Question:
What is Venus’s location in the
Solar System?

81. Answer:
It is the 2nd
planet from the Sun.

82. Question:
Why did the probes that landed
on Venus not last more than
about an hour?

83. Answer:
They were destroyed by the
high pressure and temperature
of Venus.

84. Question:
Why doesn’t Venus have a lot of
craters, like Mercury and Mars?

85. Answer:
Lava from Venus’s many
volcanoes has filled in its
meteor craters.

86. The End
This PowerPoint was created by Mrs. Burch