While Venus is the nearest planet to Earth, astronomers have rarely explored it in recent years due to its harsh environment.
From the 1970s to the 1980s, the former Soviet Union’s series of Venus probes were among the few devices specifically designed for Venus, and some of them successfully landed on Venus’s surface, took photos, and transmitted them to Earth. Through these genuine photos of Venus, astronomers discovered that Venus is much harsher than we had thought.
The English name of this planet is Venus, which is also the name of the goddess of love and beauty in ancient Roman mythology. However, if you observe and learn about this planet, you will find that it is not as beautiful and romantic as its namesake. Photo: Scienceabc
From the yellow and black images, Venus appears to have a rocky surface similar to Earth’s, but it looks somewhat rugged and cracked due to Venus’s atmospheric pressure being 90 times that of Earth. Because of the very high pressure, most of Venus’s terrain is relatively flat, and there are no significant height differences like on Earth.
Apart from solid ground, most of the gases in Venus’s atmosphere are carbon dioxide. The key characteristic of this gas is its heat-retaining ability. When it absorbs heat from the Sun’s rays, it does not dissipate it. Additionally, volcanic eruptions and internal heat on Venus’s surface release a significant amount of heat, and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps it, leading to Venus’s temperatures rising to over 400 degrees Celsius. In such high-temperature and high-pressure conditions, the former Soviet Union’s Venus probes could only operate for a few hours before losing contact and being completely destroyed.
This is a planet with an extremely extreme climate, hot enough to be compared to a furnace. So, if you are looking for a “hellish” planet in the Solar System, then Venus is undoubtedly it. Photo: Forbes
We on Earth can often see Venus before the sunrise and after sunset. It is the brightest star in the night sky. The reason it appears brighter than Mercury is due to its thick atmosphere, which has a very high reflectivity, up to 60%. All of the Sun’s light that reaches Venus is reflected back into space by Venus’s atmosphere. Furthermore, Venus is the planet closest to Earth, making it the brightest star in the night sky.
Since the 1960s, humans have launched over 40 spacecraft to Venus, with 11 unsuccessful launches, 7 space probes failing to approach, and only 9 spacecraft being able to get close to this planet. This is also why we know very little about the surface of Venus. Photo: Power-technology
Despite the extremely harsh environmental conditions, some astronomers still believe that there could be life on this planet, or more precisely, there could be airborne lifeforms in Venus’s atmosphere. They live and reproduce in the atmosphere to stay away from the high temperatures and high pressures on the surface.
The reason for this speculation is that astronomers have speculated that the gases emitted from biological activities in Venus’s atmosphere, and if these gases are confirmed not to be natural in the future, the existence of life on Venus will be essentially confirmed.
In fact, like Mars, Venus is a habitable planet with oceans and an atmosphere during the early days of the solar system. Because during the early days of the solar system, the brightness of the Sun was not as intense as it is today, the habitable zone of the planets in the solar system extended further than it does now – at least during the first 500 million years after the Sun was born, Venus was a planet in the habitable zone, and Earth was still a primitive planet. The temperature of the entire planet had not yet cooled completely and was not suitable for life to be born.
When the Venus orbiter was launched in the 20th century, it was speculated that objects such as mountains on Venus were the remnants of extraterrestrial civilizations because the resolution of the images at that time was too low. However, at the present time, this has been confirmed to be incorrect.
In fact, billions of years ago, Venus was nothing like it is today. It used to have vast oceans, and its environment was even more conducive to the development of life than Earth at that time. Photo: Allthatsinteresting
Venus is a planet with a mass and volume similar to Earth, although its environment does not allow us to explore it on a large scale like Mars, in the future, with breakthroughs in material technology and the emergence of the era of solar system navigation, Venus and Mercury, the inner planets of the solar system, will undoubtedly also be visited by human civilization.