Venus is the second planet from the sun and the sixth largest
SurfaceVenus once had large amounts of water at it's surface, but it boiled away leaving a dry planet. Venus has several large shield volcanoes and is covered by lava flows. It is volcanically active but only in a few hot spots, and the planet has been geologically quiet for a few hundred million years. There are no small craters because any meteoroids that come near the planet burn in the hot atmosphere before reaching the surface. The oldest terrains on the planet are only eight hundred million years old, because extensive volcanism wiped out earlier surfaces including large craters. Venus has mountains higher than Earth and valleys longer and deeper.
InteriorVenus has an iron core of about 3000km in radius. Covering this is a molten rocky mantle which makes up the majority of the planet. The crust is stronger and thicker than astronomers imagined and convection currents cause stress on the surface relieved in small regions.
AtmosphereVenus has a very dense atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide. This dense atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect and raises the temperature of the planet by 400 degrees. There are also several layers of sulphuric acid clouds kilometers thick and a high pressure of 90 atm at the surface. There are strong winds at the cloud tops but the winds at the surface are slow.
TemperatureThe temperature of Venus is a high 480 degrees centigrade due to the greenhouse effect.
MagnetismVenus has no magnetic field due to the slow rotation of the planet.
Venus
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