Venus is the second planet from the sun
and the sixth largest. Venus is 67 200 000 miles or 108 200 000 km from the
Sun.
It is the brightest object in the sky except for the Sun and Moon. About 80%
of the planet is covered in volcanoes of which 430 are 12 miles or 19 km or
more in diameter.
The planet contains 1000's of smaller ones.
Venus has no known satellites .
Mariner 2 was the worlds first successful interplanetary
spacecraft. It was launched on Aug 27, 1962 and
passed within 34 000 km of Venus on Dec14, 1962.
It recorded the temperature of Venus' atmosphere
for the first time at 500 C (900 Fahrenheit)
It has been visited by over twenty more to date.
It's parachute was opened and it's capsule antenna was extended, signals were returned for 35 minutes.
After landing, 23 minutes of very weak signals were returned. Making it the first man made probe to return data
from the surface of another planet.
arrived on Oct 22, 1975.It survived for 53 minutes, and
became the first spacecraft to send back pictures from
another planets surface.
The Russian Venera 13, launched
Sept 14, 1978
and landed on Venus on Mar 1, 1982.
It became the first spacecraft to send back
colour pictures from another planet.
Large probe from Pioneer Venus
entering the planets atmosphere.
The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe was launched Aug 8, 1978.
3 small probes, 1 large probe and the space bus entered the
atmosphere on Dec 9, 1978.
The most recently sent spacecraft is Magellan, launched on May 4, 1989.
It arrived at Venus on Aug 10, 1990. In the autumn of 1994 just before
the craft would have failed due to deterioration in its solar panels, it was
sent into Venus' atmosphere to make further studies in aerobraking techniques,
which will help make significant fuel savings on future missions.
One of Venus' mountains
Gula Mons
