Venus Express Probe Unveiled the Mystery of Venus

Venus Express probe was launched on November 9, 2005 in Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0333 GMT in a Russian rocket called Soyuz-Fregat.

Venus Express entered Venus successfully on April 11, 2006 to revolve around the Venus orbit to explore the mysterious atmosphere and surface of Venus for as long as 486 days or more to detect the spectacular view of Venus as a whole. This scientifically detection undoubtedly had advance people’s knowledge on the wonder of the image of Venus.

Venus Express

Venus and Earth are planets that are the second and third farthest from the sun. Both have a considerably similar sizes, density, composition, and internal structure and thus are regarded as “siblings’ planets”. Nevertheless, some consequences of Venus have marked its difference from the Earth.

Venus rotates at an extremely slow pace, that is, its self-rotation can be as long as 243 days on the Earth. One day in Venus is equivalent to 116.8 days on the Earth, while its rotation around the sun takes 224.7 days on the Earth. The day in Venus is extremely long to pass by as compared to one day on the Earth. The Venus rotates in an opposite direction of the Earth’s rotation.

The distribution of the valleys in Venus is shown by the white arrows in the image. In particular, Venus has a very dense atmosphere that is mainly composed of carbon dioxide, followed by nitrogen and very little water vapor. In contrary, the major component of the Earth’s atmosphere is the mixture of nitrogen and oxygen along with much water vapor. The atmospheric greenhouse effect is particularly apparent and strong over Venus, and its surface temperature can attain as high as 477° C while the Earth’s average surface temperature is about 15° C. In general, the atmosphere of Venus is entirely enveloped by very dense and thick clouds. The clouds contain mainly sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid. Due to its higher temperature beneath the clouds, the water droplet below the clouds can evaporate easily. Hence, the formation of acid rain is almost impossible to form over the surface of Venus. In comparison, the cloud formation distributed over the Earth relies upon the weather condition and different time scale of certain regions, and thus sometimes the formation of acid rain may obvious in some particular regions.