Goddesses of love from the Roman pantheon. It is the only one of the eight major planets in the Solar System to be named after a female deity.
Venus is the third brightest object in the Earth's sky after the Sun and Moon and reaches an apparent magnitude of −4.6. Because Venus is closer to the Sun than Earth, it is never more than 47.8° away from the Sun (for an observer on Earth). Venus reaches its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or some time after sunset, which gave rise to the name Evening Star or morning Star.
The surface of Venus is hidden by extremely thick clouds of sulfuric acid clouds with high reflective characteristics, which makes it impossible to see the surface in visible light (but its atmosphere is transparent to radio waves, with the help of which the planet’s topography was subsequently studied)
It is interesting that all the details of the relief of Venus are female names, with the exception of the highest mountain range planet located on Ishtar Earth near the Lakshmi Plateau and named after James Maxwell
Impact craters - rare element Venusian landscape. There are only about 1,000 craters on the entire planet. The picture shows two craters with diameters of about 40-50 km. The interior area is filled with lava. The "petals" around craters are areas covered with crushed rock thrown out during the explosion that formed the crater.
Venus is easy to recognize, since it is much brighter than most bright stars. Distinctive feature the planet is its level White color(see photo above). Venus, like Mercury, does not move away from the sky long distance from the sun.
- Large craters on Venus are named after family names famous women, small kraters - female names. Examples of large ones: Akhmatova, Barsova, Barto, Volkova, Golubkina, Danilova, Dashkova, Ermolova, Efimova, Klenova, Mukhina, Obukhova, Orlova, Osipenko, Potanina, Rudneva, Ruslanova, Fedorets, Yablochkina. Examples of small ones: Anya, Katya, Olya, Sveta, Tanya, etc.
The non-crateral landforms of Venus are named after mythical, fairy-tale and legendary women: the hills are given the names of goddesses different nations, relief depressions - other characters from various mythologies:
- Lands and plateaus are named after the goddesses of love and beauty; tesserae - named after the goddesses of fate, happiness and good luck; mountains, domes, regions - are called by the names of various goddesses, giantesses, titanides; hills - names of sea goddesses; ledges - names of goddesses hearth and home, crowns - with the names of the goddesses of fertility and agriculture; ridges - with the names of the goddesses of the sky and female characters, linked in myths with sky and light.
- Furrows and lines are named after warlike women, and canyons are named after mythological characters associated with the Moon, hunting and forests.
Transit of Venus across the Sun
Poems, paintings, novels, and films were dedicated to Venus.
Dante Gabriel Rosseti Venus
VENUS IS A BIBLE GARDEN...
Earth's twin nights burning,
And before there was a wonderful garden there,
And life-giving light.
Venus is the biblical hell,
Her foggy red light
And the soil is stinking...
How to unravel her secret?
Venus is the biblical hell,
Was the most beautiful of the planets,
There was water and smoothness and harmony,
Now there is no life there.
There's a lot of lightning and winds,
Its volcanoes are alive,
From lava fire cover
And hot fountains.
She is beautiful and bright...
In outfit light gases,
She is like passion tart, bitter, -
The shine of diamonds is dangerous.
So love is its source...
(As long as there is a measure in everything) -
Heat and light conductor...
Messages of Lucifer.
His mysterious double...
Night shadow Hesperus,
Love has many faces...
Among the celestial spheres.
Poems by Larisa Kuzminskaya
Sandro Botticelli The Birth of Venus
Poliziano, “Giostra” (fragment):
The stormy Aegean, the cradle through the womb
Fedita swam among the foamy waters,
Creation of a different sky,
The dissimilar person stands up to face people
In a charming pose, looking animated,
There is a young virgin in her. Attracts
Zephyr in love sinks the shell to the shore,
And their heavens rejoice in their flight.
They would say: the true sea is here.
And the sink with foam - like living ones,
And you can see that the goddess’s eyes are shining.
The sky and the elements are smiling before her.
There, in white, Ora walks along the shore,
The wind ruffles their golden hair.
You could see how she came out of the water,
She holds with her right hand
His hair, the other covering his nipple,
At the feet of the saints are her flowers and herbs
The sand was covered with fresh greenery.
Kustodiev Russian Venus
The planet Venus is one of ours nearest neighbors. Only the Moon is closer to us (excluding, of course, artificial satellites Lands launched in the last few years). Venus is visible as a very bright celestial object.
This planet is especially interesting because in many respects it is an almost exact twin of our Earth. Venus is approximately the same size and mass as Earth, so there is reason to expect similarities physical conditions on both planets. Unfortunately, we cannot directly observe the surface of Venus, because its atmosphere is an insurmountable barrier for our telescopes. Therefore, our knowledge about Venus is much more limited than about Mars, although the latter is further from us and smaller in size. IN this book I hope to summarize the results that astronomers have been able to accumulate and indicate possible directions for further research. Venus - mysterious world, but it seems that our attempts to explore it are finally becoming successful.
The solar system consists of one star - the Sun - and nine main ones crying, as well as huge number smaller celestial bodies. Planets do not have their own glow; they only reflect Sun rays and appear bright only because of their relative proximity. They revolve around the Sun in elliptical paths called orbits; the average distances of the planets from the Sun range from 58 million km for Mercury. In ancient times, however, they thought differently: the Earth was considered the center of the Universe, and celestial bodies- deities.
Five planets - Mercury, Venus. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn - must have been known since prehistoric times, and even in ancient times it was noted that although the planets look like stars, they behave completely differently. Real stars appear motionless celestial sphere and participate only in its daily rotation, so the Chaldean shepherd astronomers thousands of years ago saw the same outlines of the constellations as we do. The planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, on the contrary, wander among the stars within a certain belt in the sky, known as the Zodiac. Mercury and Venus also move in this belt, but at the same time follow the Sun as it moves among the stars (which gave reason to consider them to be closer to us than the Sun).
Venus is the most bright luminary after the Sun and Moon - is never observed in the sky throughout the night. Either she's like evening Star sets a few hours after the Sun, or appears as a morning star shortly before sunrise. At one time it was believed that the morning and evening stars were different celestial bodies, and not the same planet. In Egypt, for example, the evening star was known as Owhaiti, and the morning star as Thiomuthiri; however, in China she was called by one name, Tai-pi, or White-faced Beauty.
The Babylonians called Venus Ishtar (the personification of woman and mother of the gods) and described her as “the bright torch of heaven.” Temples were erected in her honor in Nineveh and many other places. It was believed that Ishtar sent abundance to people. Ancient legend says that when Ishtar went to kingdom of the dead In order to find his deceased beloved Tammuz, all life on Earth began to fade away and was saved only thanks to the intervention of the gods, who resurrected Tammuz and thereby returned Igatar to the living. The analogy with the ancient legend of Demeter and Persephone is obvious.
The association of the planet with a woman took place among all peoples, except, perhaps, the Indians. This is quite natural, since to an earthly observer Venus appears to be the most beautiful of the planets. The Greeks and Romans gave the name to the goddess of beauty, and temples of Venus were erected in many places, such as Cyprus and Sicily. The month of April was dedicated to the goddess. In fact, the cult of Venus persisted until very recently. Williamson testifies that back in the 19th century. and Polynesia offered human sacrifices to the Morning Star; Sacrifices were also performed by the Skydy Pawnee Indians in Nebraska. It takes many years for ancient beliefs to fade away.
Homer also mentioned Venus: “Hesperus is the most beautiful of the stars of heaven.” The oldest surviving records of observations of the planet appear to have been made in Babylon. However, astronomy firmly stood on its feet as a science only in ancient times. It became known that the Earth is not a plane, but a sphere, and other planets are also spheres. If the Greeks had taken one more step and overthrown our planet from its throne of honor at the center of the Universe, it seems that the progress of mankind would have accelerated. Some philosophers and scientists, most notably Aristarchus of Samos, did this, but their ideas contradicted religious tenets, and subsequently the ancient Greeks returned to geocentrism.
The ancient Greek system of the world received its highest development in the works of Hipparchus and Ptolemy. Claudius Ptolemy, who died around 180 AD, left us a work (“Almagest.”—Ed.), which reflected the level of knowledge in the period of decline ancient culture. This system is known as the "Ptolemaic system", although, in fact, Ptolemy was not its main author.
According to these ideas, the Earth is at the center of the Universe, and various celestial bodies revolve around it in “perfect” circular orbits. Lupa is closest to all other bodies to the Earth, then Mercury, Venus and the Sun, followed by the other three planets known at that time - Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and, finally, the stars.
Already in the time of Ptolemy, it was obvious that such a system of the universe faced significant difficulties. For example, the planets do not continuously move among the stars from west to east: Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can stop for a few days, then go back, making a “retrograde” movement, and then again begin to move in the same direction - to the east. To get rid of this difficulty, Ptolemy, who was an excellent mathematician, proposed that the planet moved in a small circle, or "epicycle", the center of which in turn revolved around the Earth in big circle- “deferent”. The possibility that planets could move in elliptical orbits was not allowed. Movement in a circle was considered the most perfect form movement, and nothing but absolutely perfect, of course, could happen in heaven.
New problems arose for Mercury and Venus, and Ptolemy was forced to assume that the centers of their epicycles were constantly in a straight line with the Sun and Earth. This at least explained why both planets never appear in opposite the Sun side of the sky. However, the whole system turned out to be too artificial and cumbersome.
IN early XVII V. The telescope was invented, and in 1609 Galileo Galilei, a professor of mathematics in Padua, pointed the instrument he had just made to the sky for the first time. The scientist immediately saw that his expectations were more than justified. Were visible on the moon high mountains and huge craters; there were spots on the Sun; four of its own moons were circling around Jupiter, and Saturn looked somehow strange, although Galileo could not figure out what was going on there, and Milky Way turned out to be a huge mass of faint stars.
Galileo himself was an ardent supporter heliocentric system world, which was resurrected and developed by Copernicus about 60 years earlier. Galileo looked for evidence of the validity of this system and found it, oddly enough, by observing the phases of Venus. Yes, Venus did exhibit phases, but they turned out to be of the same type as those of the Moon: sometimes the planet was observed in the form of a crescent, and sometimes as an almost complete disk.
Galileo's discoveries were met with a storm of indignation. The princes of the church objected vehemently; The story of Galileo's arrest, trial and forced abdication is well known. Many of his contemporaries refused to believe what they saw through telescopes, and Galileo did not live to fully admit that he was right.
Kepler also walked along the right way. His research, based on the precise observations of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, allowed the scientist to derive the famous laws of planetary motion that bear the name of Kepler. The first of these laws states that each planet revolves around the Sun in an ellipse, at one of the foci of which the Sun itself is located; the movement of Venus, as I expected, obeyed this law. At the very end of the century, Isaac Newton's works devoted to the problem universal gravity, finally clarified the whole picture. Since then the Ptolemaic system and others geocentric systems have become a thing of the past.
The discovery of the phases of Venus helped open the door to knowledge; the path forward seemed clear.
The morning sky brightens quite quickly with dawn, and the stars disappear from it one after another. Only one luminary remains visible longer than the others. This is Venus, the planet - the morning star. It is many times brighter than Sirius for an earthly observer and is second in the night sky in this sense only to the Moon.
Features of movement across the sky
Today, almost everyone knows which planet is called " morning star" and why. The beautiful Venus appears in the sky shortly before sunrise. After dawn, it remains visible longer than other luminaries due to its brightness. The most keen observers can see for several hours after sunrise white dot in the sky - this is the planet “morning star”.
Venus also appears before sunset. In this case it is called the evening star. As the sun sinks below the horizon, the planet becomes brighter. It can be observed for several hours, then Venus sets. It doesn't appear in the middle of the night.
Second from the Sun
The answer to the question “which planet is called the morning star” could be different if Venus was in a distant part of the solar system. A similar nickname was given to the cosmic body not only because of the characteristics of its movement across the sky, but also because of its brightness. The latter, in turn, is the result of the position of the planet relative to the Earth and the Sun.
Venus is our neighbor. At the same time, it is the second planet from the Sun, almost identical in size to Earth. Venus is the only one of its kind suitable for such close quarters to our home (minimum distance 40 million kilometers). These factors allow you to admire it without the help of telescopes or binoculars.
Things from days gone by
In ancient times, the answers to the question of which planet is called the morning star and which is the evening star did not coincide. It was not immediately noticed that the luminaries that precede their appearance at sunrise and sunset are one and the same cosmic body. Ancient astronomers carefully monitored these stars, and poets created legends about them. After some time, careful observation bore fruit. The discovery is attributed to Pythagoras and dates back to 570-500. BC e. The scientist suggested that the planet known as the morning star is also the evening star. Since then, we have known a lot about Venus.
Mysterious planet
The cosmic body named after it, as if justifying its name, excited the minds of astronomers for a long time, but did not allow them to get closer to unraveling its secrets. Almost until the 60s of the last century, Venus was considered a twin of the Earth, and there was talk about the possibility of discovering life on it. This was greatly facilitated by the discovery of its atmosphere. The discovery was made in 1761 by M.V. Lomonosov.
Improvement of technology and research methods allowed us to study Venus in more detail. It turned out that dense atmosphere the planet is mainly composed of carbon dioxide. Its surface is always hidden from observation by a layer of clouds, probably consisting of sulfuric acid. The temperature on Venus exceeds all thresholds imaginable for humans: it reaches 450 ºС. This and other features of the planet caused the collapse of all theories that suggested life on a cosmic body close to us.
Gas giant
However, the question “which planet is called the morning star” has another answer, and more than one. Sometimes this name is used to denote Jupiter. The gas giant, although it is a considerable distance from our planet and is located further than Mars from the Sun, is immediately behind Venus in terms of brightness in the sky. They can often be seen close to each other. As recently as early July 2015, Venus and Jupiter were visible as a beautiful double star.
It should be noted that gas giant quite often available for observation throughout the night. Therefore, it cannot be called as suitable a candidate for the role of the morning star as Venus. However, this does not make it a less interesting and beautiful sky object.
Closest to the Sun
There is another morning star. The planet other than Venus and Jupiter so designated is Mercury. Closest to the Sun cosmic body named after the Roman messenger of the gods for its speed. Either ahead of or catching up with the daylight star, for an earthly observer Mercury is visible alternately in the evening and morning hours. This makes him related to Venus. The small planet is therefore also historically called the morning and evening star.
Elusive
The peculiarities of Mercury's movement and proximity to the Sun make it difficult to observe. Ideal places for this are low latitudes and the equator region. Mercury is best visible during the period of maximum distance from the Sun (this time is called elongation). In mid-latitudes, the likelihood of seeing one decreases greatly. This is only possible during the best elongations. Mercury is inaccessible to observers from high latitudes.
The planet's visibility is cyclical. The period is from 3.5 to 4.5 months. If Mercury, moving in its orbit, overtakes the daylight clockwise for an earthly observer, then at this time it can be seen in the morning hours. When it is behind the Sun, there is a chance to observe the fastest planet in the system in the evening. Each time Mercury is visible for about ten days.
Thus, this planet is called the morning star with good reason. However, not everyone knows this “nickname” of Mercury. for obvious reasons: to see it in the sky is a rare success due to its close location to to the daylight, as well as relatively small sizes.
So, which planet is called the morning star? It can be said with all certainty that similar question implies the answer “Venus”, less often “Mercury” and almost never, although this is possible, “Jupiter”. The planet, named after the goddess of love, due to its proximity to the Earth and high reflectivity, and therefore brightness, is more noticeable to an observer inexperienced in astronomy, and therefore will always firmly occupy the place of the most beautiful morning star for the majority.
People call the morning star the second planet of the solar system - Venus. The thing is that at dawn only one of them remains in the sky, while other stars leave it.
Why is this happening?
There is no secret here. Venus is the brightest star. In this respect, it is second only to the Earth’s satellite, the Moon. That's why we see her early morning. It doesn't last long. As the sun rises above the horizon, so does Venus. Initially, it turns into a bright white dot, which after a few hours becomes invisible.
But still, why is Venus called the morning star? The thing is that it appears in the sky just before dawn, and remains there for several hours after sunrise. It was for such an original ability to appear in the sky in the morning hours that Venus was called the “morning star.”
However, this is not its only name. With the same success, Venus can be called the evening star. During the day it remains invisible, and with the onset of evening twilight it reappears in the sky. As the sun sets below the horizon, the planet becomes brighter. It will remain in the night sky for only a few hours, and then disappear, only to reappear in the morning and announce the beginning of a new day.
Thus, we can say that so original name Venus received due to its brightness. In turn, this is due to its location relative to the Sun and Earth. Let us remember that this is the second planet of the solar system. Its size is identical to the size of our planet. In addition, Venus is located at a distance of forty million kilometers from Earth. Only the Moon is closer. For this reason, it can be seen with the naked eye.
Ancient people, due to their illiteracy, could not believe that the morning and evening stars were the same planet. Only centuries later they managed to unravel this mystery. The first to do this was the famous Pythagoras, who lived in 500 BC. He suggested that the morning and evening stars are one and the same space object. It turned out to be our neighbor, the planet Venus, named after the Goddess of Love.
However, this understanding did not come immediately. For a long time astronomers considered Venus to be a twin of the Earth, and tried to find traces on it intelligent life. Well, why not? After all, Venus also had an atmosphere. Only after it was discovered that it was based on carbon dioxide, this idea was abandoned. In addition, the clouds of Venus consist of sulfuric acid vapor, and the temperature on its surface is 460 degrees. As for atmospheric pressure, it is 92 times greater than that on Earth. Water presses with approximately the same force at a depth of 900 meters. In addition, Venus does not have a magnetic field. What this is connected with is still unknown. One of the reasons may be the extremely slow rotation of Venus around its axis, but for now this is just a hypothesis.
And the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon. This planet is sometimes called sister of the earth, which is associated with a certain similarity in weight and size. The surface of Venus is covered with a completely impenetrable layer of clouds, the main component of which is sulfuric acid.
Naming Venus The planet was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Even in the times of the ancient Romans, people already knew that this Venus is one of four planets different from Earth. Exactly the most high rate The brightness of the planet, the prominence of Venus, played a role in its being named after the goddess of love, and this allowed the planet to be associated with love, femininity and romance for years.
For a long time it was believed that Venus and Earth are twin planets. The reason for this was their similarity in size, density, mass and volume. However, later scientists found out that despite the obvious similarity of the data planetary characteristics, the planets are very different from each other. It's about about such parameters as atmosphere, rotation, surface temperature and the presence of satellites (Venus does not have them).
As with Mercury, humanity's knowledge of Venus increased significantly in the second half of the twentieth century. Before the US and Soviet Union began organizing their missions in the 1960s, scientists still had hope that the conditions beneath Venus's incredibly dense clouds might be suitable for life. But the data collected as a result of these missions proved the opposite - the conditions on Venus are too harsh for living organisms to exist on its surface.
A significant contribution to the study of both the atmosphere and surface of Venus was made by the USSR mission of the same name. The first spacecraft sent to the planet and to fly past the planet was Venera-1, developed by the S.P. Rocket and Space Corporation Energia. Korolev (today NPO Energia). Despite the fact that communication with this ship, as well as with several other mission vehicles, was lost, there were those that were able not only to study the chemical composition of the atmosphere, but even to reach the surface itself.
The first spacecraft, launched on June 12, 1967, that was able to conduct atmospheric research was Venera 4. The spacecraft's descent vehicle was literally crushed by pressure in the planet's atmosphere, but the orbital module managed to make a number of valuable observations and obtain the first data on Venus's temperature, density and chemical composition. The mission determined that the planet's atmosphere consists of 90% carbon dioxide with minor amounts of oxygen and water vapor.
Devices orbiter indicated that Venus has no radiation belts, and the magnetic field is 3000 times weaker than the Earth's magnetic field. Indicator ultraviolet radiation The sun on board the ship made it possible to identify the hydrogen corona of Venus, the hydrogen content of which was approximately 1000 times less than in upper layers Earth's atmosphere. The data were later confirmed by the Venera 5 and Venera 6 missions.
Thanks to these and subsequent studies, today scientists can distinguish two broad layers in the atmosphere of Venus. The first and main layer is the clouds, which cover the entire planet in an impenetrable sphere. The second is everything below those clouds. The clouds surrounding Venus extend from 50 to 80 kilometers above the planet's surface and consist mainly of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4). These clouds are so dense that they reflect 60% of everything back into space sunlight, which Venus receives.
The second layer, which is below the clouds, has two main functions: density and composition. The combined effect of these two functions on the planet is enormous - it makes Venus the hottest and least hospitable of all the planets in solar system. Due to the greenhouse effect, the temperature of the layer can reach 480°C, which allows the surface of Venus to be heated to the maximum temperatures in our system.
Clouds of Venus
Based on observations from the Venus Express satellite, which is supervised by the European space agency(ESA) scientists were able to show for the first time how weather in the thick cloud layers of Venus are related to the topography of its surface. It turned out that the clouds of Venus can not only prevent observation of the surface of the planet, but also give clues about what exactly is located on it.
It is believed that Venus is very hot due to the incredible greenhouse effect that heats its surface to temperatures of 450 degrees Celsius. The climate on the surface is depressing, and it itself is very dimly lit, as it is covered with an incredibly thick layer of clouds. At the same time, the wind that is present on the planet has a speed not exceeding the speed of an easy jog - 1 meter per second.
However, when viewed from afar, the planet, which is also called Earth's sister, looks very different - smooth, bright clouds surround the planet. These clouds form a thick twenty-kilometer layer that lies above the surface and is thus much colder than the surface itself. The typical temperature of this layer is about -70 degrees Celsius, which is comparable to temperatures on the cloud tops of the Earth. In the upper layer of the cloud, weather conditions are much more extreme, the wind blows hundreds of times faster than on the surface and even faster speed rotation of Venus itself.
With the help of Venus Express observations, scientists were able to significantly improve climate map Venus. They were able to identify three aspects of the planet's cloudy weather: how quickly the winds on Venus can circulate, how much water is contained in the clouds, and how bright these clouds are distributed across the spectrum (in ultraviolet light).
“Our results showed that all these aspects: wind, water content and cloud composition are somehow related to the properties of the surface of Venus itself,” said Jean-Loup Berto of the LATMOS Observatory in France, lead author of the new Venus Express study. "We used observations from spaceship, which covered a period of six years, from 2006 to 2012, and this allowed us to study patterns of long-term weather change on the planet."
Surface of Venus
Before radar studies of the planet, the most valuable data on the surface was obtained with the help of the same Soviet space program "Venus". The first device to make soft landing to the surface of Venus, was space probe Venera 7, launched on August 17, 1970.
Despite the fact that even before landing, many of the ship’s instruments were already out of order, he was able to identify pressure and temperature indicators on the surface, which amounted to 90 ± 15 atmospheres and 475 ± 20 ° C.
1 – descent vehicle;
2 – solar panels;
3 – celestial orientation sensor;
4 – protective panel;
5 – corrective propulsion system;
6 – pneumatic system manifolds with control nozzles;
7 – cosmic particle counter;
8 – orbital compartment;
9 – radiator-cooler;
10 – low-directional antenna;
11 – highly directional antenna;
12 – pneumatic system automation unit;
13 – compressed nitrogen cylinder
The subsequent mission "Venera 8" turned out to be even more successful - it was possible to obtain the first surface soil samples. Thanks to the gamma spectrometer installed on the ship, it was possible to determine the content in the rocks radioactive elements, such as potassium, uranium, thorium. It turned out that the soil of Venus resembles terrestrial rocks in its composition.
The first black-and-white photographs of the surface were taken by the Venera 9 and Venera 10 probes, which were launched almost one after the other and soft-landed on the surface of the planet on October 22 and 25, 1975, respectively.
After this, the first radar data of the Venusian surface were obtained. The pictures were taken in 1978, when the first space American devices Pioneer Venus has arrived in orbit of the planet. Maps created from the images showed that the surface consists mainly of plains, the formation of which is caused by powerful lava flows, as well as two mountainous regions, called Ishtar Terra and Aphrodite. The data was subsequently confirmed by the Venera 15 and Venera 16 missions, which did the mapping northern hemisphere planets.
The first color images of the surface of Venus and even recordings of sound were obtained using the Venera 13 lander. The module's camera took 14 color and 8 black and white photographs of the surface. Also, an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer was used for the first time to analyze soil samples, which made it possible to identify the priority rock at the landing site - leucite alkali basalt. The average surface temperature during module operation was 466.85 °C and the pressure was 95.6 bar.
The module launched after the Venera-14 spacecraft was able to transmit the first panoramic images of the planet’s surface:
Despite the fact that obtained with the help space program"Venus" photographic images of the surface of the planet are still the only and unique ones, representing the most valuable scientific material, these photographs could not give a large-scale idea of the planet's topography. After analyzing the results obtained, the space powers focused on radar research of Venus.
In 1990, he began his work in orbit of Venus spacecraft called Magellan. He managed to take better radar images, which turned out to be much more detailed and informative. For example, it turned out that out of 1000 impact craters that Magellan discovered, none of them exceeded two kilometers in diameter. This led scientists to believe that any meteorite with a diameter of less than two kilometers simply burned up when passing through the dense Venusian atmosphere.
Due to the thick clouds that shroud Venus, details of its surface cannot be seen using simple photographic means. Fortunately, scientists were able to use the radar method to obtain the necessary information.
Although both photography and radar work by collecting radiation that is reflected from an object, they have a big difference and it consists in reflecting forms of radiation. Photography captures visible light radiation, while radar mapping reflects microwave radiation. The advantage of using radar in the case of Venus was obvious, since microwave radiation can pass through the planet's thick clouds, whereas the light needed for photography is not able to do this.
Thus, additional research The size of the craters has helped shed light on factors indicating the age of the planet's surface. It turned out that small impact craters are practically absent on the surface of the planet, but there are also no craters of large diameter. This led scientists to believe that the surface was formed after a period of heavy bombardment, between 3.8 and 4.5 billion years ago, when the a large number of impact craters on inner planets. This indicates that the surface of Venus has a relatively small geological age.
Study volcanic activity planets made it possible to identify even more character traits surfaces.
The first feature is the huge plains described above, created by lava flows in the past. These plains cover about 80% of the entire Venusian surface. Second characteristic feature are volcanic formations that are very numerous and diverse. In addition to shield volcanoes that also exist on Earth (for example, Mauna Loa), many flat volcanoes have been discovered on Venus. These volcanoes are different from those on Earth because they have a distinctive flat disc-shaped shape due to the fact that all the lava contained in the volcano erupted at once. After such an eruption, the lava comes out in a single stream, spreading in a circular manner.
Geology of Venus
As is the case with other planets terrestrial group Venus is essentially made up of three layers: the crust, the mantle, and the core. However, there is something that is very intriguing - the interior of Venus (unlike or) is very similar to the interior of the Earth. Due to the fact that it is not yet possible to compare the true composition of the two planets, such conclusions were made based on their characteristics. On this moment Venus's crust is thought to be 50 kilometers thick, its mantle 3,000 kilometers thick, and its core 6,000 kilometers in diameter.
In addition, scientists still do not have an answer to the question of whether the planet’s core is liquid or is solid. All that remains is to assume, in view of the similarity of the two planets, that it is the same liquid as that of the Earth.
However, some studies indicate that Venus's core is solid. To prove this theory, researchers cite the fact that the planet significantly lacks a magnetic field. In other words, planetary magnetic fields are the result of heat transfer from inside the planet to its surface, and necessary component This transmission has a liquid core. The insufficient strength of magnetic fields, according to this concept, indicates that the existence of a liquid core on Venus is simply impossible.
Orbit and rotation of Venus
The most remarkable aspect of Venus's orbit is its uniform distance from the Sun. The eccentricity of the orbit is only .00678, which means that the orbit of Venus is the most circular of all the planets. Moreover, such a small eccentricity indicates that the difference between Venus' perihelion (1.09 x 10 8 km) and its aphelion (1.09 x 10 8 km) is only 1.46 x 10 6 kilometers.
Information about the rotation of Venus, as well as data about its surface, remained a mystery until the second half of the twentieth century, when the first radar data were obtained. It turned out that the planet's rotation around its axis is counterclockwise when viewed from the "upper" plane of the orbit, but in fact Venus's rotation is retrograde, or clockwise. The reason for this is currently unknown, but there are two popular theories, explaining this phenomenon. The first indicates a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance of Venus with the Earth. Proponents of the theory believe that over billions of years, Earth's gravity changed the rotation of Venus to its current state.
Proponents of another concept doubt that Earth's gravitational force was strong enough to change Venus's rotation in such a fundamental way. Instead they refer to early period existence of the solar system, when the formation of planets took place. According to this view, Venus's original rotation was similar to that of the other planets, but was changed to its current orientation by the collision of the young planet with a large planetesimal. The collision was so powerful that it turned the planet upside down.
The second unexpected discovery related to the rotation of Venus is its speed.
In order to do full turn around its axis the planet requires about 243 earthly days, that is, a day on Venus is longer than on any other planet and a day on Venus is comparable to a year on Earth. But even more scientists were struck by the fact that a year on Venus is almost 19 Earth days less than one day on Venus. Again, no other planet in the solar system has such properties. Scientists associate this feature precisely with the reverse rotation of the planet, the features of the study of which were described above.
- Venus is the third brightest natural object in the Earth's sky after the Moon and the Sun. The planet has a visual magnitude of -3.8 to -4.6, making it visible even on a clear day.
Venus is sometimes called the "morning star" and the "evening star." This is due to the fact that representatives of ancient civilizations took this planet for two different stars, depending on the time of day.
One day on Venus is longer than one year. Due to the slow rotation around its axis, a day lasts 243 Earth days. A revolution around the planet's orbit takes 225 Earth days.
Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It is believed that the ancient Romans named it so because of the planet's high brightness, which in turn may have come from the times of Babylon, whose inhabitants called Venus "the bright queen of the sky."
Venus has no satellites or rings.
Billions of years ago, Venus' climate may have been similar to Earth's. Scientists believe that Venus once had big amount waters and oceans, however due to high temperatures and the greenhouse effect, the water has boiled away, and the planet's surface is now too hot and hostile to support life.
Venus rotates in opposite direction in relation to other planets. Most other planets rotate counterclockwise on their axis, but Venus, like Venus, rotates clockwise. This is known as retrograde rotation and may have been caused by a collision with an asteroid or other space object that changed the direction of its rotation.
Venus is the most hot planet in the solar system with average temperature surface 462°C. Additionally, Venus does not have a tilt on its axis, which means the planet has no seasons. The atmosphere is very dense and contains 96.5% carbon dioxide, which traps heat and causes Greenhouse effect, which evaporated water sources billions of years ago.
The temperature on Venus practically does not change with the change of day and night. This happens due to moving too slowly solar wind over the entire surface of the planet.
The age of the Venusian surface is about 300-400 million years. (The age of the Earth's surface is about 100 million years.)
Atmosphere pressure Venus is 92 times stronger than Earth. This means that any small asteroids entering Venus's atmosphere will be crushed by the enormous pressure. This explains the absence of small craters on the surface of the planet. This pressure is equivalent to the pressure at a depth of about 1000 km. in the oceans of the Earth.
Venus has a very weak magnetic field. This surprised scientists, who had expected Venus to have a magnetic field similar in strength to Earth's. One of possible reasons this is that Venus has a solid inner core or that it is not cooling.
Venus the only planet in the solar system named after a woman.
Venus is the closest planet to Earth. The distance from our planet to Venus is 41 million kilometers.
Plus
