Mythology

    Venus, which is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, is veiled by thick swirling cloud cover.

Properties

    Venus has no oceans and is surrounded by a heavy atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide with virtually no water vapor.

    Its clouds are composed of sulfuric acid droplets. At the surface, the atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of the Earth's at sea-level.

    Venus has a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F).

    This high temperature is due to greenhouse effect

    A Venusian day is 243 Earth days and is longer than its year of 225 days.
 
    Venus rotates from east to west.

Surface Features

    Venus' surface is relatively young geologically speaking.
 
    Maxwell Montes in Ishtar Terra is the highest peak on Venus.

    The Aphrodite Terra highlands extend almost half way around the equator.

    Large meteorites shatter just before impact, creating crater clusters.

    85% of the Venusian surface is covered with volcanic rock.

    Giant calderas more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) in diameter are found on Venus.

    Several features unique to Venus include coronae and arachnoids.

    Coronae are large circular to oval features, encircled with cliffs and are hundreds of kilometers across. They are thought to be the surface expression of mantle upwelling.

    Archnoids are circular to elongated features similar to coronae. They may have been caused by molten rock seeping into surface fractures and producing systems of radiating dikes and fractures.

• Summarised  information (Word 97 document)
• Information extracted from Britannica 97