Venus

The Inner Planets Part 2Venus (5th grade) Created March 2017

Venus

Goal: I will know some basic information about the planet

Venus.

Rubric:

HP: Absorb 90% or more of this information in your memory.P: Absorb 70% or more.PP: Absorb 60% or more.MP: Absorb 59% or less.

What are some things we already know about Venus?

Venus is one of the inner planets, along with Mercury, Earth, and Mars.

Venus is the 2nd planet from the sun.

https://youtu.be/z8aBZZnv6y8

Watch this 2:41 min. video on the planets’orbits around the sun. Keep in mind that the scale is not accurate. The real scale is so large, it would be difficult to see each planet.

How long do you think a Venus year is?

Remember, a planet’s year is how long it takes it to make 1 orbit (revolution) around the Sun.

A Venus year (the time it takes for Venus to orbit the Sun 1 time) is 225 Earth days.

A year on Venuswould end on August13th.

https://youtu.be/f6foCDF6zI0

Here is another video of the planets’ orbiting the Sun.

Pay attention to which directionVenus rotates.

Question:

How does Venus rotate compared to the other planets?

Answer:

Venus rotates in the opposite direction of the other planets.

Knowing that Venus rotates in the opposite direction as our

own planet, what can you determine about sunrises and

sunsets on Venus?

Sunrise on Earth Sunset on Earth

You’re right, if you think it means that the Sun rises in the

West, instead of the East! Conversely, the Sun sets in the East on Venus, not the West!

How long is a day on Venus?

It takes Venus a sluggish 243 Earth days to rotate one time on

its axis!

That means that a day on Venus is actually LONGER than

a year on Venus.

And, once the Sun rises, it doesn’t set for about 120 Earth

days!

Question:

On Earth, the sun rises in the East. In which direction does the sun rise on planet Venus?

Do you remember?

Answer:

The sun rises in the West, if you’re on planet Venus.

How Did Venus Get Its Name?

The Romans believed that gods and goddesses were in charge of everything on Earth. Venus is the goddess of love, and they named this planet for her.

Venus

Venus hasno moons.

This is how Venus looks from space.

Venus looks like this from space. We can see its clouds that are made of sulfuric acid.

Wind blows these clouds at hurricane speeds (about 224 mph).

If we could see beneath these clouds, however, Venus would look more like this.

How Big Is Venus? Venus is only slightly smaller than Earth. It also has about the same mass and gravity as Earth. For this reason, Venus is often called our “Sister Planet” or our “Twin Planet”.

Mercury and Mars are both scarred by craters.

Mercury Mars

However....

...Venus has a relatively smooth surface.

This is a computer-generated picture of what Venus looks like on the surface. It is based on radar images.

It is likely that Venus’s craters were filled in by lava from its many volcanoes, giving it a smooth surface. Venus’s volcanoes are huge compared to those of Earth.

Maat Mons volcano. This image was generated from radar data collected by the Magellan probe.

In fact, Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet

in the solar system.

Active volcano onEarth.

Volcanoes on Venus have created lava flows up to more than 3,000 miles in length, longer than on any other planet. (The U.S. is 3,000 miles across.)

Example of a lava flow on Earth.

Venus is the hottest world in the solar system. In some places, it can be as hot as 1,000o F.

Venus’s dense atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide that traps heat in a runaway version of the greenhouse effect. As a result, the average temperature on Venus reach 8700 F.

The atmosphere on Venus is made of 96.5% carbon dioxide, 3.5% nitrogen, with minor amounts of sulfur dioxide, argon, water, carbon monoxide,

helium and neon.

The atmosphere on Venus is heavier than that of any other planet, leading to a surface pressure 90 times that of Earth.

A soda can on Venus would easily be crushed by the atmosphere’s pressure. It would also get totally melted away.

The surface of Venus is extremely dry. This is because ultraviolet rays from the sun evaporated water quickly.

Photograph of Venus’s surface taken from Russian space probe.

There is evidence of lightning on Venus. It is not from water clouds, however, like it is on Earth. It

comes from clouds of sulfuric acid.

Venus’s surface is 90% basalt. Basalt is a hard rock that was once molten lava.

Examples of basalt found on Earth.

How do we know this much about Venus? More than 20 space probes have been sent to Venus.

In 1962, NASA launched the Mariner 1 space probe. It was to be the 1st probe the U.S. would

send to another planet, but it failed to reach orbit.

5 weeks later, NASA launched Mariner 1’s back-up probe: Mariner 2.

Mariner 2 reached Venus 3 months after its launch, in which it did a fly-by of the planet.

Artist’s depiction of Mariner 2 in space.

This made Mariner 2 the first U.S. probe to reach another planet.

However, it was NOT the 1st probe to reach Venus. Can you guess which country sent the 1st probe to

Venus?

It was the Soviet Union (Russia).

The Soviet Union (Russia) launched a

total of 16 space probes to Venus

starting in 1961 and ending in 1983.

They were named Venera stations. Venera is the Russian word for Venus. The 1st probe was the

Venera 1 and the last was the Venera 16.

This is a photoof Venera 4.

Venera 1 was the 1st space probe to reach another planet. It did a fly-by of Venus in 1961, beating the United States by 1

year.

In Nov. 1965, The Soviet Union (Russia) launched the Venera 3 space probe. It possibly crash-landed on Venus on March 1, 1966, making Venera 3 the first spacecraft to crash into the surface of another planet. However, its communications systems failed before it reached the planet.

On Aug. 17, 1970, the Soviet Union (Russia) launched their space probe, Venera 7.

Venera 7 entered Venus’s atmosphere on

Dec. 15, 1970, becoming the first

probe to ever land on another planet.

It landed with the help of aparachute.

Each of the Venera probes to enter Venus’s atmosphere only lasted a few hours before being destroyed by its extreme heat and pressure.

The first photos of Venus’s surface were sent by Venera 9 and 10. Venera 9 landed on Venus on October 22, 1975 and operated on the surface of Venus for 53 minutes. Venera 10 landed on October 25 and survived for 65 minutes.

A shot of the rocky surface of Venus, taken by the Soviet Venera 13 mission.

The most successful landing missions to Venus were Venera 13 and Venera 14. They landed on March 1 and March 5, 1982. They both survived for more than an hour and managed to send the first colored images of Venus.

Another shot from Venera 13.

The U.S. sent 2 more spacecraft to Venus in 1978. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter went into orbit around the planet, while the Pioneer Venus Multi-Probe deployed four atmospheric entry probes to investigate the atmosphere.

In 1985, the Soviet Union (Russia) launched 2 Vega spacecraft. Each deployed a surface lander and an instrumented atmospheric balloon.

In 1989, the U.S. launched the Magellan mission. The Magellan probe was actually launched from the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It used a radar system to create high-resolution maps of Venus’s surface.

In 2005, the European Space Agency launched a probe called the Venus Express. It was designed to orbit Venus, and allowed scientists to study Venus’s surface topography as well as weather patterns. This picture is computer-generated from data collected by the Venus Express.

In 2014, the Venus Express finally ran out of fuel and began to dive into one of Venus’s polar regions. Before its crash, it sent back data revealing that the polar region was VERY cold at -250 degrees F. The picture below is an artist’s rendition of its dive into Venus.

Okay, it’s time to quiz yourself:

How many moons does Venus have?

Answer:

0 moons

Question:

Which is bigger...Venus or Earth?

Answer:

Earth is a tiny bit bigger.

Question:

What was the first probe to fly by Venus, who sent it, and

when?

Answer:

The Venera 1 was launched in 1961 by the Soviet Union

(Russia) .

Question:

What is Venus’s nickname? Why is it called that?

Answer:

Earth’s “Twin Planet” or “Sister Planet”. It’s called that because

it has a similar size and gravitational pull as Earth.

Question:

How is Venus’s rotation unique to all other planets in the Solar

System?

Answer:

It rotates (spins) in the opposite direction.

Question:

What is Venus’s surface mostly made of ? What is its

atmosphere mostly made of?

Answer:

The ground is 90% basalt rock and the atmosphere is 96.5%

carbon dioxide.

Question:

If Mercury is closer to the Sun than Venus, why is Venus the

hottest planet in our Solar System?

Answer:

The huge amount of carbon dioxide in Venus’s atmosphere creates a horrible green house effect. Radiation from the Sun (think heat) enters, but doesn’t

escape.

Question:

What is strange about the length of a Venus year and a

Venus day?

Answer:

A Venus day is actually longer than a Venus year.

Question:

What is Venus’s location in the Solar System?

Answer:

It is the 2nd planet from the Sun.

Question:

Why did the probes that landed on Venus not last more than

about an hour?

Answer:

They were destroyed by the high pressure and temperature

of Venus.

Question:

Why doesn’t Venus have a lot of craters, like Mercury and Mars?

Answer:

Lava from Venus’s many volcanoes has filled in its

meteor craters.

The End

This PowerPoint was created by Mrs. Burch