Talk:Venus

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"Venus has slow retrograde rotation, meaning it rotates from east to west instead of west to east as all other known planets in the solar system do" -- not true; Uranus and Pluto both rotate retrograde, Uranus with an axial tilt of 97 degrees and Pluto with almost 120 deg. I propose fixing this. --Phil Karn

I updated the irradiance figures to correspond to those found in the table in a NASA publication. These seem to make more logical sense; if Venus is twice as far from the Sun than Mercury is, then it should only receive 25% the solar irradiance. The NASA numbers correspond nicely. (I also had to change the irradiance given for Mercury, which makes me wonder where the numbers originally came from.) --Bkell 08:01, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing, and I changed that 75% figure to 25% since it was an obvious error. But I didn't have better irradiance figures, so I'm glad you found them. I note that Mercury has a very eccentric orbit, so its irradiance figure will vary quite a bit. --Phil Karn

Is revolution period same as the planet's sidereal period? It seems to be, and if it really is, the table text should be more precise. DAN MERCIA

Given all other measurements being SI, perhaps the "four miles an hour" reference should be converted to km? I don't have the back of an envelope handy to figure whether I should round it to six or seven km/h.

Could the creator of the page send me some links about how to write html to my email dracmandx@aol.com, cause i suck but want to get better

However, due to the high density of the atmosphere at Venus' surface, even such slow winds exert a significant amount of force against obstructions.

This line is irrelevant to the atmosphere of Venus. Unless you want to describe the consequences of wind-surface interactions then it's just hanging there.Chris Lee 12:03 UTC, 03 Nov 2004


on surface the temperature is never below 400°C.

Most of the paragraph is lax in accuracy, but this is a very broad statement. A simple calculation will show that Maxwell's peak could have a temperature of 350°C, if you use 464°C as the mean surface temperature.

Contents

[edit] Picture

I think the two planet pictures should be switched, since the RADAR picture is not easy to understand and looks very different from the usual pictures of Venus. Awolf002 23:24, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree, and was going to suggest the same thing myself~; the RADAR image is not a picture of what Venus would look like to the naked eye and is thus misleading. The Singing Badger 00:13, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I see that the picture has been changed again, this time to what looks like a Venus Express infrared and ultraviolet composite image view of the planet. While it's nice to see that current material is being added to the page, I don't think the new image enhances the look or "realism" of the page. There's no reason why Venus should be the only Wikipedia planet page without a naked-eye accurate image of the body, especially since there already was one!

[edit] Orbital characteristics

No offence intended, but the recent edits by The Singing Badger were a bit misguided in my opinion, so I have mostly reverted them. Hoping to avert an edit war, here are my reasons:

  • The section name "Getting to Venus" is more accurate than "Landing on Venus" because the issues discussed:
    • have no bearing on actual atmospheric entry and touchdown
    • are relevant whether or not one wants to actually touch down on the surface of Venus, or merely orbit it (or even fly by)
  • I think starting out by mentioning where Venus' orbit is located fits perfectly in a section on how to get there. Separating it into its own tiny single-paragraph section serves no purose to my mind.
  • There is no article called gravitational well, and it's not clear to me that there should be such an article, so I decided to use italics instead.
  • Falling toward Venus does not "create" potential energy. In fact, you lose potential energy when you fall. My original phrasing was that the fall toward Venus represents a lot of potential energy that must be dissipated, and I think that's a more accurate statement.
  • I'll acquiesce on the addition of the word "thus", and the changing of "something" to "rather".  :-)

Please let me know if you think I have made the article worse. --P3d0 21:39, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)


No worries, I don't do edit wars. :) I know nothing about orbital dynamics, by the way, I'm just interested in clarity for the reader.
  • My initial reason for editing was that it seemed odd to put this useful addition between the section on the first flybys and the section on the first landings. Because of this placing, I assumed your reason was that the information is specifically pertinent to landing on Venus (and indeed you mentioned soft landings by name). If you're in fact talking about travel to Venus in general, we can simply move the whole section to the beginning of the 'Observation by spacecraft' section where it makes more sense.
  • I moved the orbit section simply because the section on the circularity of the planet's orbit is useful info that shouldn't be buried in a section on space travel. I admit it did look crap in a section on its own, though; maybe it belongs in the overview or something?
  • If 'gravitational well' is not an official scientific term it should be in quotation marks, not italics; if it is, it shouldn't have any formatting around it.
  • On everything else, I apologise for trying to correct things I know nothing about...!
I'll do some of these edits and if you disagree with them, by all means change again. The Singing Badger 22:17, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I like what you've done. Looks great! --P3d0 03:49, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Having done some math, it turns out it's not all that hard to get to Venus, so I have moved that "driving off a cliff" text to Mercury (planet), which requires three times the rocket fuel. --P3d0 17:49, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I stetted that paragraph it before I read this. (Of course, it is not that hard to get to Venus,
Not so obvious, compare Mercury_(planet)#Getting_to_Mercury.--Patrick 23:55, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)
Ah - had forgotten angular momentum. Nice section. I coudn't help tweaking it a little. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:18, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
the problem is staying there!) How hard is it from an spacecraft from Earth to enter an orbit around / land softly on Venus? Would it be better to compare it to, say, skateboarding down a hill and trying to stop at the bottom, rather than driving off a cliff? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:39, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I calculate the Hohmann transfer requires a delta-v of 5 km/s for Venus and 15 km/s for Mercury, neglecting Earth's and Venus' own gravity. Escape (which current technology has never achieved without a gravitational slingshot) requires 12 km/s. If you are interested, I can do a real calculation including escape from Earth and capture by Venus/Mercury. The overall effect would be to make the delta-vs larger and more similar. In fact, according to this very cool chart, the planetary gravity would add about 6.4 km/s to all these numbers, so (without double-checking) that gives 11.4 to Venus, 21.4 to Mercury, and 18.4 to escape the sun. --P3d0 19:07, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)
Interesting - so Mercury is more difficult to get to than escaping the Solar System! An interesting factoid for Mercury (planet), no? And Venus is about 33-50% as hard as Mercury. Are these points worth mentioning somewhere? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:34, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I can do the numbers more rigorously if you like, and then we can decide how to phrase them. (Remind me if I forget!  :-) --P3d0 19:55, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Transit picture

Does anybody have a "real" (and GFDL) picture of the 2004 transit? The current picture is from a simulation! Awolf002 16:28, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Are the ones on Transit of Venus or Transit of Venus, 2004 appropriate? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:11, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Right! Those are good. I will pick one and change it. Awolf002 14:49, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural references vs. Venus in fiction

I think "Venus in fiction" is too narrow. The section should include other cultural expressions, and references to other cultures than the Anglo-Saxon/Western. See discussion on Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates. — David Remahl 16:52, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would disagree with you on that. It needs to be written though. When that's done, 'Venus in fiction' could simply be a subheading within a larger section on cultural references. The Singing Badger 18:27, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
True. While I'm not really qualified to, I'll make an attempt at reducing the bias in the article. Someone more knowledgeable will no doubt clean it up in the future. — David Remahl 23:35, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that an article about Venus in fiction (similar to Earth in fiction and Mars in fiction) was started some time ago (not by me). Maybe we should move some of the Cultural References to that article? --Koveras 15:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Astrology

Shouldn't there be a page about how the planet Venus is interpreted in different schools of astrology?

You mean "page", right? Not "section in this page"? This article is geared toward the physical side of the planet, not it's mythological one. I think astrology would not fit in this page. Also, look at the dab page Venus. Awolf002 15:21, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Recent" confusion

The radically different connotations of the word "recent" in the third paragraph of the "Suface features" section are confusing. I assume, but cannot know from this article, that "recently-solidified basalt lava" implies "several hundred million years" ago, based on the later text in the paragraph. I'm fairly certain that the "recent results from... Magellan" are only a few years old at most, based on the lack of Pleistocene-era space probes. (The link helps, too. ☺) Unfortunately, my beleaguered brain is failing to come up with a concise way of reducing the time-scale whiplash. Could someone else give it a go? — Jeff Q (talk) 02:45, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps "geologically recent" should be OK in the first case. Geo- here is confusing a bit, but searching with Google I found it used concerning Mars [1]. Cmapm 18:57, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This is alreday fixed by somebody, however. Cmapm 19:01, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brightest point of light?

Regarding the following:

It is sometimes referred to as the "Morning Star" or the "Evening Star", and when it appears it is by far the brightest point of light in the sky.

What about when the sun and/or moon are out at the same time? Venus is the third brightest object in the sky, unless one is being very specific about points of light. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:26, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the sentence means that Venus is the brightest star-like object in the sky. Maybe slightly misleading, but in the next paragraph it is described as third brightest object in the sky. Should they be combined to avoid repetition?--Jyril 17:10, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
I've tried to clarify the statement a bit, although it might be more sensible just to omit the fact that it's the brightest point source and just stick with mentioning that it's the third brightest overall. Worldtraveller 22:08, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Meteor craters

"Owing to Venus's thick atmosphere, which causes meteors to decelerate as they fall toward the surface, no impact crater smaller than about 3.2 km in diameter can form."

if meteors are slowed, shouldnt the craters be smaller ie "no impact crater greater than..."?

I've tried to make that bit of the article a bit clearer on this point. The situation is that the smaller meteors burn up completely, the intermediate ones might reach the ground but are slowed to such low speeds that they don't form craters. Only the largest can reach the ground and still have enough energy to form a crater, and this results in a minimum size of crater that can be formed. This page contains a good explanation of the general principle. Worldtraveller 22:08, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image

Following precident of other planet articles shouldn't the visible light image be the one at the top of the page in the table?--Deglr6328 05:51, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree. See for example the german Venus article de:Venus (Planet). I think the best visible light picture of Venus was the one taken by Galileo probe, which is already in the "Observation by spacecraft" subsection --Bricktop 03:39, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Athmospheric pressure

I was wondering: How comes that the pressure of Venus's atmosphere is so much higher than Earth's although both planets have roughly the same mass and should hence be able to retain the same amount of gas in their gravity well? Anybody happens to know? TIA. Simon A. 16:23, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Earth has little carbon dioxide in its atmosphere but far more locked in carbonate rocks. There's enough carbon dioxide in the Earth's rocks to allow a Venus-like density if it were released. More significantly, the Earth's water has a huge volume of material (water, of course) that would become atmosphere if the Earth were to be warmed to Venus-like temperatures. Most theories hold that as the sun expands to a gas giant toward the end of its life, the Earth will slowly be warmed to temperatures around 60°C, at which point a runaway greenhouse effect will take effect, and then temperatures will skyrocket. An increasing load of water vapor will itself add density to the atmosphere (that itself raising the temperature) and accelerate the greenhouse effect, until at roughly 305°C, the critical point of water, the greenhouse effect from water vapor will no longer cause further heating. Any increased temperatures will result from the further expansion of the sun, and at another point, carbon dioxide will be released from carbonate rocks.

With an even higher pressure, the Earth would become even hotter than Venus even if the upper atmosphere clouds enough to prevent any sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface. But the Earth's seething surface will be anything but dark; its rocks will radiate heat which will likewise be prevented from escaping through the same clouds that prevent the entry of all but the dimmest sunlight.

Don't be unduly scared. This won't happen for hundreds of millions of years. So far, the Earth has a relatively thin atmosphere, much unlike that of Venus, that isn't very good at holding onto heat. We still have real winters from about 35° north and south poleward, and real nights everywhere. We are safe so far from the runaway greenhouse effect, and the carbon dioxide that would make the Earth a Hellish place is safely locked away.

Venus, in contrast, is too hot to have any carbonate rocks. It's also too hot to hold water vapor. An atmosphere as crushing as that of Venus is hot in its own right. The perfect gas law (PV=nRT) implies that temperature is proportional to pressure, and Venus has enough atmospheric pressure to be exceedingly hot in its own right.--66.231.38.97 01:20, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That last bit is not right. T is proportional to P only if the volume V is constant. But this is not realistic for an atmosphere. Apart rom really special circumstances, when you increase pressure, its volume that goes doen to suit, and temperature does nothing. It's hot under Venus's atmosphere purely because of the greenhouse. That is: the heat has a hard time getting out because there's more stuff to pass through before you get into space. Deuar 19:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

This page was moved from Venus (planet) to Venus. Is this being done for all of the planets? Did I miss the discussion? Is a reader more likely to be looking for the planet or the god? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:45, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this is surprising! I think this should be reverted and then discussed! Awolf002 13:41, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)


It has been proposed that Venus (disambiguation) should be placed at Venus (which presently redirects to the disambig page), however, in the course of that discussion several editors have expressed a preference for placing Venus (planet) at Venus, so we are expanding that discussion to include this possibility.

To vote please visit Talk:Venus (disambiguation)#Page move: Disambig or Planet.

Dragons flight 01:07, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

The discussion has just been closed and has led me to believe that there should be something at Venus rather than it being a redirect. The majority wanted it to be the planet, though not by a massive margin. I've now gone with that decision. violet/riga (t) 10:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Appearance

This new table does not fit into this article at all. I will remove it, if no objections are made. Awolf002 12:37, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Temperature

The temperature at the tops of these clouds is approximately −45°C / −113°F.
-45C is nowhere near -113F. 45C is about 113F, hence the confusion. What's the correct temp? Thanks!Rockhopper10r 5 July 2005 22:56 (UTC)

[edit] Surface features

There is a new Geology of Venus article translated from the Spanish, still in progress, containing much new information, especially about the volcanology of Venus. It looks as though there's a fair amount of information in Venus which could be added to that one and then the 'Surface features' section of this page rewritten as a summary of the combined information. When the new main page is finished I'd like to have a go at this, any thoughts? Keithlard 18:29, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguous

"...and is considered an evil angel "cast out of heaven" by several Christian denominations."

Is the planet considered evil? Is Lucifer not considered evil by Christians? I'm going to change it to this:

"Venus was called Lucifer by St. Jerome, who is the fallen angel "cast out of heaven" in the Christian scripture."

If this is not the original intent, then feel free to change it.

[edit] Observations and explorations article

Any real reason they can't be in their own article?? It's large enough, right?? 66.32.246.23 23:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] rotation

extremely slow rotation of less than one rotation per Venusian year

Doesn't this effectively mean that Venus rotates 'the other way around' (as compared to other planets, excluding Uranus and Pluto)? DirkvdM 10:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Visible light image needed

Need at least one visible light image.--Nixer 19:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dear NASA

Dear NASA,

Why not send weather satellites to Venus? Then we could put them on TV, for a Venus Weather Channel akin to the current (Earth) Weather Channel. I'm sure lots of people would be interested to see up-to-the-minute pictures and video of Venus. oneismany 11:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


Something tells me it'd be hot. Here7ic 17:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


What would be the point in sending weather satellites to Venus? Who would want a Venus weather channel? I'd prefer to know the weather where I live, not on another planet. It would be a waste of money to send something into space to observe the weather of another planet. No matter how interesting, there is no scientific goal attached. Brownsc 02:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Surface Illumination

A reader Barton has sent an e-mail to the Wikipedia help desk claiming that the figure for the surface illumination is wrong

"The text gives the surface illumination as 1,017 Watts per square meter. The correct figure is 17 Watts per square meter. The figure given is off by a factor of 50.

The Solar constant at Venus is roughly 2614 Watts per square meter. Because a planet receives sunlight on its cross-sectional area, but has spherical area, only 1/4 of this falls on an average meter -- 654 Watts per square meter. But Venus has a bolometric Bond albedo of 0.76 (not 0.60 as in the article), which cuts the illumination which enters the atmosphere/surface system to 157 Watts per square meter. The clouds absorb about half of that and the air absorbs most of the rest, so you wind up with only 17 W/m2 at the surface.

Check the U. of AZ compendia "Venus" and "Venus II" for further details."

Thanks for your consideration of this point. Capitalistroadster 01:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Further to this, he has provided further information:

Source for the bolometric Bond albedo of Venus being 0.76:

Taylor, F. W. et al. 1983. 650-680 in Venus, ed. Hunten, D. M. et al. Tucson, AZ: Univ. of

Ariz. Press.


Source for the surface illumination being 16.8 +/- 2.3 Watts per square meter:

Marov, Mikhail Ya. and Grinspoon, David H. 1998. The Planet Venus. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press., p. 298.

[edit] Silly precision

Can someone with a source please figure the correct precision on this?

On December 16th, 1850, Venus reached the lowest distance to earth since 1800, with a value of 0,264138541298281 AU = 39514827 kilometres. This will be the closest approach of Venus to earth until December 16th, 2101 when Venus will reach a distance of 0,26431736 AU = 39541578 kilometres to earth.

The sig figs on the first AU number would carry it down to millimeters. Dragons flight 02:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the precision is silly. But the figures are wrong anyway. Using solex9.0, by famous expert Aldo Vitagliano, shows that the 1850 pass was very close, the closest since 1631. But it will not be beat in 2101 (or even within a few tens of thousands of years). Actually,
This is reliable. I ran the program with and without the big three asteroids (most of the perturbing effect from the asteroid belt) and Neptune, with no difference in the numbers, which were given to six decimal places. There was only a tiny difference after also removing Uranus. There was no difference between the DE409, DE406, or the now obsolete DE200 ephemerides from JPL for starting positions. I also compared it with JPL's Horizons system for the 1631 distance, and the difference is small enough to neglect for this analysis.Saros136 08:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orbital resonance into Planet characteristics tables

Sorry for this error...


I propose adding this value into Planet characteristics tables:

Orbital resonance,

which is an integer ratio (smallest denominator) between Orbital period of this planet and the nearer one.

(This is partly "my original discovery", but it is verifiable from values, that you (wiki) show in planets Orbit period values, just with a desktop calculator)

I feel this value is important, since it keeps orbits "in tune"...

Venus / Mercury == 69/27 - 0.12%

Earth / Venus == 44/27 + 0.41%

Mars / Earth == 51/27 - 0.81%

... (note - 1 planet is missing here, and correct ratio would lead into middle of asteroid-belt...)

Jupiter / Mars == (68/27)^2 + 0.69% (would you correct this calculation?)

Saturn / Jupiter == 67/27 + 0.07%

Uranus / Saturn == 77/27 + 0.3%

Neptune / Uranus == 53/27 - 0.18%

Pluto is not a planet, just a biggest kuiper-belt asteroid, locked into orbit by Neptune in ratio 3/2.


Proposed ratio of 8/5 for Earth/Venus [2] has got a 2.55% error. It just means, that the star is rotating and closes more preciselly after 27 outer steps than after 5...

Trying to find a smallest integer denominator for other planets leads always to 27. Surprising?

The integer ratio is important, since it means, that planets get over this many orbits into sync, which keeps them running in this tempo, since small tempo-deviances would be straightened by reciprocal attraction at meet-points...

The difference from integer ratio (shown in percent) is also important, since this makes the meet-points very slowly rotating into a higher tune octave...

Please - verify the values once (and percent deviances) before publishing, but it should be obvious...


Semi Psi 17:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC).

Congratulations, you have discovered a new way of looking at the Titius-Bode law of 1766. To the degree it is relevant to anything, it is already discussed in Solar System. Dragons flight 18:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
But please do not label this with my name as a law... Can you (we) just silently add it into the pool of wikipedian knowledge? From my point of view, this is just a consequence of concentrating knowledge in an accesible space, arising into an "united world" inteligence...
And yes, it is of a relevant importance to something else... It will pay out understanding, what the higher-level wave-form looks like (by suming the residuum over centuries)...

I had rewised this, and found some obvious errors in the above:

Orbital resonance of Venus/Earth is 13/8, minus approx. 2.5 days. Can be clearly seen by barytrace, which creates 5-pointed star in circles, and closes after 8 earth-years. The whole star rotates in negative direction (contrary to planet orbit direction) approximatelly after 239 earthyears for 1/5 cycle. Precise values are still being calculated...

Orbital resonance for Mercury should be relative to Earth-Venus barycenter. Mercury is the only planet, that crosses barycenter between other two planets, and seems to be synchronized by this.

Orbital resonance for Jupiter/Saturn is 5/2, with positive residuum.

Mars orbits such, that it just does not cross Jupiter/Saturn barycenter trace. Venus rotates such, that it just does not cross Earth/Mars barycenter trace, and so on...

Neptune/Uranus resonance seems rather 49/25, but it still needs a very long (4100 ey) data-set for verification...

...

Semi Psi 15:57, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orbital resonance (continued)

Sorry, in the above table, the percentage deviance values were obtained by subtracting actual and expected ratios. But a correct operation would be dividing the values and subtracting 1, which yields even smaller percentage deviances...

Percentage deviance should be calculated this way:

((OrbitPlanet2/OrbitPlanet1) / (Resonance/27)) - 1

and not this way:

(OrbitPlanet2/OrbitPlanet1) - (Resonance/27)


Some matematitian would know even better...?

[edit] Venus face

Sorry, there was an erroneous topic here... I really apologize for placing ill-considered values here, even on talk-pages...

[edit] Cythera

I tweaked the second paragraph of the "Name" section because it was not entirely clear at all why "Cytherean" would be an alternate adjective to "Venereal." It also wasn't immediately clear when I followed the link to the "Cythera" article, so I just added that little bit of explanation, pretty much copied from the text of the Cythera article. 140.244.107.148 15:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, that should be signed CommanderFalafel
The adjective actually comes straight from the name Cytherea, which is just another name for Aphrodite/Venus. siafu 18:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I wrote a short article on "Cytherean" a year ago... not sure when the link vanished from the article. I've added it back in. Shimgray | talk | 21:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sothis cycle

Since 5 * 584 = 2920, which is equivalent to 8 * 365 Venus returns to the same point in the sky every 8 years (minus two leap days). This was known as the Sothis cycle in ancient Egypt, and was familiar to the Maya as well. -- Unfortunately, I don't see anything in the Sothis entry to explain this; the entry says that Sothis is almost surely the star Sirius. Could someone elaborate? Also, this entry conflicts with a later sentence in the pentagram explanation that claims the cycle is 5x8=40 years. Using the awesome authority of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code as a tiebreaker ;) I'll change that second sentence to agree with the first. This article could still use a good graphic demonstrating how the apparent pentagram comes to be formed. Mike Serfas 15:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible error

From the article:

On December 16th, 1850, Venus reached the lowest distance to earth since 1800, with a value of 0.26413854 AU = 39,514,827 kilometres. This will be the closest approach of Venus to earth until December 16th, 2101 when Venus will reach a distance of 0.26431736 AU = 39,541,578 kilometres to earth.

Perhaps my thinking is muddled, but isn't this (because of the "until") saying that 39,541,578 km is a shorter distance than 39,514,827 km? If so, what should these values be? One-dimensional Tangent (Talk) 16:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not an expert but I wonder if these values within the Physical characteristics are correct (I think they are not..but not sure):

Rotation period −243.0185 d Rotation velocity 6.52 km/h (at the equator)


Thank you for any feedback.

[edit] Magnetosphere

Does anybody know how strong a magnetosphere Venus emits? I recall something about it being very weak, but I may be thinking about another planet... Here7ic 17:29, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Venus has no magnetosphere.--Jyril 17:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Venus in fiction

Why this list is on this article? There is a separate Venus in fiction for them. Only a brief, leading paragraph on the subject should be included here, not a long list.--Jyril 17:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recording Venus

I'm recording the Venus article into ogg format. It's my first one, so I'm still playing with the sound setup and getting over listening to my voice. I'll only upload the files after I read the entire article. In the meantime, I'm stashing the stuff at http://aero.ist.utl.pt/~rdrs (university area, no publicity).cool

--Rdrs 16:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is the possessive form of "Venus"?

Both " Venus' " and " Venus's " are used extensively in this article, although the latter seems to hold the edge. Alas, I'm no English major, but maybe somebody could settle this and clean the article up.

I would say Venus's since it is a singular name. The only time you should just add an apostrophe to show possession is if you have a plural which ends in s.

--Syd Henderson 21:46, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Astrological sign assocated with Venus

What is the astrological sign associated with Venus in the Zodiac? --User:Angie Y.

[edit] Deficiencies

I think this article falls well below the standards we expect of FAs these days. The lead section is inadequate, there is nothing at all about the exploration of Venus, precious little about volcanism and the theory of global crust recycling, inadequate referencing, and an enormous and not particularly relevant list of books that mention the planet that should be replaced by germane prose. To be honest I think the article needs a rewrite largely from scratch. I intend to list it on FARC shortly and am noting its deficiencies here as now required. Worldtraveller 14:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV? "The Goddess"

This section bugs me.

"The pentagram has long been associated with the planet Venus and the worship of the goddess. It is most likely to have originated from the observations of prehistoric astronomers."

Not the part about Venus being associated with a goddess, but that it says "the goddess" rather than specifying what goddesses the planet Venus may be associated with. As far as I'm aware, the term "the goddess" is generally used to refer to a modern religious movements. At any rate, I think this needs to be clarified and/or needs to have sources cited.

FWIW, I read that as "associated with the planet Venus and the worship of the goddess [Venus]"; it seems the most obvious reading. Shimgray | talk | 16:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Back to FA?

If anyone is interested in collaborating in a mini-project in getting this article back to FA status, drop me a message on my talk page. --BillC 22:29, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Surface features: dubious x 2

Other recent findings suggest that Venus is still volcanically active in isolated geological hotspots

That'd be very interesting, of course, but I was under the strong impression that present-day volcanic activity is one of the long-outstanding questions that eg. the Venus Express probe was going to have a crack at. Such a tantalizing statement needs a source!

Venus's rocks are much harder than Earth's, which leads to steeper mountains, cliffs and other features

Really? There's some pretty steep cliffs and other features here on Earth. I've seen them! ;-) I don't know how you can get steeper. Also - why then did most topographic reconstructions from Magellan data feature captions like "vertical exaggeration ×10", etc. Finally, are the rocks really harder at all? They're hotter, which would make them softer, I would think. Maybe lack of erosion is being confused with steepness and hardness. Erosion is actually what is responsible for the steepness of landforms on Earth. Deuar 18:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


The southern continent is called Aphrodite Terra, after the Greek goddess of love, she was a slut and is the larger of the two highland regions at roughly the size of South America.

Is it really appropriate to use the word 'slut' in this article? Is it apropos to the name of the highland, or Venusian geography in general? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.114.55.54 (talk) 07:32, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

Vandalism, since reverted. Michaelbusch 16:58, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rotation resonance with Earth conjunction

I put the numbers in and I don't see any resonance. Nothing close. Somebody kick me if i'm wrong. Looks like a complete myth. Where did people get it from?
Venus orbit period: Tv=224.70069 days
Earth orbit period: Te=365.256366 days
Time between conjucntions is Tv×Te/(Te-Tv). Gives 583.920620 days. Equals 2.4027826 venus rotations. Nothing remarkable.
2.4 is not the same as the claimed 5.001
Deuar 22:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Since there appear to be no objections, it's getting the chop Deuar 14:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
The bit you removed is correct, actually - the confusion arises because Venus's sidereal day (time between culminations of a given star) is 243 days, but its solar day (time between successive culminations of the Sun) is 116.75 days. 116.75 x 5 ~ 584. User:BillC and I are currently working on a re-write of the article in which this is hopefully better explained - see Venus/temp. Worldtraveller 15:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah I see, of course, it's the solar day that matters indeed. Very interesting.
I consider myself kicked then ;-) Deuar 15:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Good work on checking it up though and sorry I didn't notice your query a couple of days ago - the current article clearly doesn't explain it well enough. Thoughts on whether the re-write does the job much appreciated! Worldtraveller 15:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
The rewrite is much better - the original somehow has a light sensationalist smell, which initially caused me to be suspicious. It might be nice to explicitly mention that this causes Venus to show a very similar face to Earth during each opposition, though, since it may not be obvious to all. I wonder if anyone has cited that 1969 reference since. By the way, it's nice to see your serious improvement drive over at Venus/temp Deuar 16:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the Week: June 13-19

Venus has been made Astronomy collaboration of the week for the week of June 13-June 19. Please make suggestions for ways to improve this article here or by all means, Be Bold! --Volcanopele 21:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Venus is in fact right now a Featured Article candidate. The best place for making suggestions for improvement at least for the next few days might be its FAC candidacy page. BillC 21:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Duly noted, Collaboration of the week changed to Mars. (note to self: read talk page header boxes) --Volcanopele 21:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mea culpa

Sorry for my boo boos. Tony 07:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, not at all. Thanks for the copyedits. I just altered a couple of things from the latest - 'solar wind' and 'ashen light' invariably have 'the' before them in the literature. I also changed the sentence about phases - as worded, I thought it seemed to imply that Venus has phases because it orbits the Sun. This is true, but not what I was trying to say. I reworded to try and make it clearer that 'As' is used in the sense of 'while' rather than 'because'. I could probably word it to avoid 'as' altogether. Worldtraveller 09:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Venera images

Images made by the Soviet Union after 1973 were the copyright of the Soviet Government and on its dissolution passed to its successors. This includes all the Venera surface images. The Venera 13 images, for example, has been deleted from the Commons as a non-free image, see its deletion log there. It's not impossible that in the future such images will be released to the world, but for the time being at least, they're not suitable for the GFDL. BillC 08:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dynamo theory

I've removed, twice, the addition of as described by a dynamo theory for celestial bodies. to the end of The weakness of the magnetic field is thought to be due to Venus' very slow rotation (see below), which is not fast enough to generate a dynamo effect. This is because it's completely unclear to me what is meant by this. I can't see why extra text is needed here, and this added text is extremely confusing. Worldtraveller 09:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Venusian Atmosphere

Can anyone possibly shed some light on the minor atmospheric constituents of venus (carbonyl sulphide, for instance), and possibly some data relating to the atmospheric chemistry of the planet? Unless I've missed it, there doesn't seem to be any reference to the puzzle of why hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide can co-exist there, when the two tend to react together. Ditto, I've found no mention of the unknown aerosol that causes the planet's strong absorbtion of the ultraviolet region (presumably a sulphur compound of some form, due to the absorbtion bands).

Finally, should it be noted that carbon dioxide, at the temperature and pressure of the venusian surface, is no longer strictly a 'gas', so much as a Supercritical Fluid?

These are just a couple of observations. If they aren't pertinent to this article, feel free to disregard the suggestions. IMHO though they seem like points of interest which may be worth covering - albeit perhaps in an article about the Venus Atmosphere, akin to the Geology of Venus article? --Xanthine 23:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

To be honest I think this sort of thing would be too detailed for this article. I think atmospheric chemistry might be a bit beyond the interest of most readers. It could be worth starting a subarticle though. Worldtraveller 15:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early Observations/Discovery of Atmosphere

Ok, so I've tried to get this change going a number of times with less than satisfactory results since I can't seem to find a good source. The change is this: I'm pretty sure most historians agree that Mikhail Lomonosov was first to postulate that the ring observable around the trailing edge of Venus at the beginning of a transit is light bending through a dense atmosphere. He saw this during the 1761 transit. I have found an abstract of an article asserting this and you can find the reference in the most recent change I made to the article. Can anybody with better resources check out this lead? I think it's worth knowing who was first.LGDubs 14:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

What we have at the moment is Henry Russell's 1899 paper, which credits Schroter with the discovery. I'd of course be happy to credit Lomonosov, if a source more convincing than Russell can be found. I'm not convinced, I have to say, by a conference abstract. Worldtraveller 15:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Global Warming link...

Just a suggestion - since Venus is referred to having had an atmosphere similar to Earth's, and could theoretically have a surface temperature similar to earth's today, but had a drastic increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, which more than quadrupled its surface temperateure... I think a link to topics on Global Warming may be informative and apt. Readers of Wikipedia are all residents of the planet Earth after all. A simple link could add value to the topic.

That, or any more information on the details we have on the warming process that Venus may have gone through from what we know so far, and what experiments may be under way to verify these established theories here on earth.

Ryan Fenton 14:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Should we have a global warming link here. Hardee67 13:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Avg. distance from Sun"

The other planets articles list the semi-major axis of the orbit, not the "average distance" (which would be strictly less, since the eccentricity is non-zero). Also, "Avg. distance from Sun" is a link to "semi-major axis". I have been unable to determine (consulting the references, and a little googling) if this number is indeed one or the other (they will be close but different to this accuracy), though I suspect that we do indeed have a mislabeling here (as well as an inconsistency from the other planet articles). Can anyone verify? 67.180.168.73 06:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Almost certainly a mis-labeling. Great that you spotted it. The "average" distance depends on how you weight your average. An average over time would be greater than the semi-major axis, but this is almost never used. I would suppose that the value is correct for the semi-major axis because this is what is always given in orbit data. Deuar 11:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Any photos of the surface of Venus?

Any photos of what the surface looks like? I think only two probes actually landed on Venus.. Did they take any pictures when they landed? Malamockq 20:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a section in the article under Venus#Surface_science. Veneras 9, 10, 13 & 14 all returned images of the surface; 9 and 10's in black and white, 13 and 14's in colour. Venera 11 and Venera 12 were designed to take pictures, but their cameras both failed when the lens covers failed to eject. Venera images of the surface post-date the 1973 change in Soviet copyright law, and cannot be shown in Wikipedia due to copyright issues. --BillC 00:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Well do you have a link to these photos on another website? Malamockq 13:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Try http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm for Don Mitchell's analysis and manipulation of the images. This link is in the article's external links section. The answers to all your questions so far have been in the article. Please read it; I think it's a good read. BillC 17:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Most likely, these web sites will be in violation of the asserted copyright, and so we should not link to them! Awolf002 16:24, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to know who owns the copyright for the Soviet space images?--JyriL talk 16:38, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Copyright passed to the Russian and other successor governments to the Soviet Union. To answer Awolf002, I believe that Mitchell has authority to publish the images on his website, and even if he did not, it is not Wikipedia's duty to police the copyright of external sites, and there is not a problem with including a link to it. --BillC 17:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
NSSDC hasn't had any problems keeping the images in their website[3][4] for over a decade without any copyright statement (exluding the newer Mitchell's versions added much later). Calvin J. Hamilton, whose website is also 10+ years old, has some Venera images labeled as public domain.[5]--JyriL talk 20:56, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I was just making sure that you all are aware of WP policy regarding copyright violations done by other web sites. If we can clearly determine that a site does not have the right to publish an image or text, we should not link to that page per policy. We do not police that site, but we do have the choice not to link to it. Awolf002 23:26, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
That is a fair point, and is acknowleged. In the case of Mitchell's website, there is no indication of breach of copyright, and indeed he attributes the ownership of the images and acknowledges the help of the authors. So in this case I think it is a fine external link to include. --BillC 23:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I find it rather strange that it is of such vital importance for Wikipedia to include an image of the poster for Big Momma's House 2 that we're willing to stoop to fair use for it, but when it comes to the only existing ground-level photographs of the nearest planet to Earth we're so paranoid of legal action that we can't even link to other sites that display them. Bryan 23:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Images? Like this one already hosted on Wikipedia?
Surely fair use could be called on any and all images of Venus, provided they're for recognition and/or critical commentary. Does anyone know if there's a reason why astronomical images seem to be omitted from Wikipedia's Fair Use policy page? Given that at least half of all TV documentaries concerning Venus or the Venera landers have used said images... I think we've all seen those pictures in popular culture by now. --Xanthine 13:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
It's more than likely that images that were taken by the Soviet space program are public domain, though I can't find an explicit statement to that effect. All images published in the Soviet Union prior to 1973 are exempt from international copyright laws (but may be under copyright in CIS nations), and according to Wikipedia:Copyrights "Reports about events and facts, of informative character" are exempt from copyright under Russian law. Generally, though, I'm guessing that these images have a similar copyright status to images taken by NASA, i.e., PD by default. siafu 14:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Venus images?

Venus Express has now been orbiting Venus for a couple of months. Anyone know why no true-color images of the planet (not the surface of course) have not been released? You'd think they'd have taken quite a few. But it seems like the only true-ish color images around are still from Mariner 10. FelineAvenger 04:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Potential error

The article says: When Galileo first observed the planet in the early 17th century, he found that it showed phases like the Moon's, varying from crescent to gibbous to full and vice versa. This would be impossible if both the Sun and Venus orbited the Earth, and these were the first observations to clearly contradict the centuries-old belief that the solar system was centered on the Earth. I believe the last part of the sentence, in italics, is false. Venus phases demonstrate that Venus is revolving around the Sun, but it does not demonstrate that the Sun is not revolving around the Earth. A system where Venus and Mercury would be rotating around the Sun, with the Sun and the rest of the planets revolving around Earth, was indeed proposed---it is the well known Tychonian system. I therefore believe that the last part of the sentence should be changed apropriately. That said, I am no astronomical nor historian expert, so I would like to see some opinions before editing. Marcus wilby73 06:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)Marcus Welby73

According to the linked article all the planets orbit the sun and then it orbits the Earth. Upto this time the Ptolemaic system was thought correct, Galileos observations were the first to clearly show that Venus did not orbit the Earth.. and thus Earth was possibly not at the systems centre. The artcile should not be changed -- Nbound 06:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

With all respect, don't you find a difficulty in reconciliating your opinion that the "Earth was possibly not at the systems center" with the article when it mentions that Galileo observations clearly contradict the belief that the Earth is at the centre of universe? In any case, the Venus article clearly contradicts what is written in the Tycho Brahe article, where we can read: "In the years following Galileo's observation of the phases of Venus in 1610, which made the Ptolemaic system intractable, the Tychonic system became the major competitor with Copernicanism, and was adopted by the Catholic Church for many years as its official astronomical conception of the universe." The contradiction stems from the fact that, in the Tychonic system, the Earth is still at the centre of the universe, with the Sun system rotating around it. Marcus wilby73 06:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, perhaps the article would be better off saying: "and these were the first observations to clearly contradict the Ptolemaic System Model". (or something along those lines -- Nbound 07:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Enhanced Venus Surface Photos

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060911_venus_images.html Hills, you can see hills. Thanks, CarpD 9/11/06

Wow! who would have thought you could get so much more from those old images. I've taken the liberty of adding it to the external links section. Deuar 13:51, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Life

I know at least one research team has suggested microbes might live in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Some one who knows more about this might add it. Marskell 10:35, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's a very interesting theory but it is very remote, and I believe it falls under the category "original research", which is not really suitable for an encyclopaedia because it's not knowledge yet. At Extraterrestrial life there is already a short mention of this: "For example, atmospheric life has been hypothesised on Venus and the gas giants." and I think this is enough. Alex.g 19:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
If the "research team" in question is sufficiently notable and has produced verifiable references for this claim, then it wouldn't be original research to mention that "such and such a group has proposed that microbes might etc." We could also describe details of their proposal, if there are any (one would hope if they're worth mentioning at all they'd have come up with some details about how such life could live and what sort of evidence it might leave). Bryan 20:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Here's a link on the subject. I personally think this could be mentioned in the article, in the context of the early discussions of possibilities of life on Venus (cp. Carl Sagan's theories on "seeding" the planet's atmosphere with life).


Shouldn't there be any information on life or supposed life on Venus? Venus is noted as being one of the main candidates to harbor life

Given it's extreme surface temperature and the near total lack of water in it's atmosphere, life does not seem likely on Venus, but maybe you have some source that says otherwise?--agr 19:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Correction, earthly life is unlikely. Venus could easily hold beings who's biology is designed for high temperature, sulfurous environments. --Anarchy_Balsac

You misunderstand me ArnoldReinhold. What I meant to say was that like the article on Mars there should be a section entitled "life". That doesn't necessarily mean that life does exist, it means that life could exist.

There are a lot of sources on that - here's one. Mithridates 06:39, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


FYI, here are a few more sources on the topic. I think it's being sufficiently investigated to quality as not being original research.

NASA Technical Report:

New Scientist:

Astrobiology Magazine:

Space.com:

PS: I noticed there were two sections entitled "Life" on this talk page, so I've amalgamated them. --Xanthine 11:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction.

The geological information on this page claims the surface of Venus is 500 million years old, but the "Geology of Venus" page claims it's 100 million years old. What gives? Octopod 14:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] infobox

There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects#Planet_infobox_conventions_.28km_vs._AU_vs._miles.29 on standardizing the planet infoboxes, as well as the possibility of changing the planet diameter to radius. If you care about these things, let your opinion be heard there. Lunokhod 10:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Simultaneous occurance of transits/Solar eclipse

The next simultaneous occurance of a transit of Mercury and a transit of Venus will be in 69163, and the next simultaneous occurance of a solar eclipse and a transit of Mercury would be in 6757. Would there be any way to calculate the next simultaneous occurance of a transit of Mercury, a transit of Venus, and a solar eclipse? (I presume it would take thousands if not millions of years). Brownsc 02:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Female-named planets

Hi wikifolk; great article! The introduction says: Venus is the only planet in the Solar System named after a female figure. I changed the line to note that this statement is only true for the "full" planets, while a couple of dwarf planets (i.e., Eris (dwarf planet) and Ceres (dwarf planet)) are named after females, but was reverted on the grounds that Only one dwarf planet (Eris) and the sentence then becomes muddled.

While my correction may have been muddled, my feeling is that the sentence as reverted is just incorrect. An argument could be made that a dwarf planet is not a kind of planet, but since "planet" itself is ill-defined, and the common reader (such as myself) understands "dwarf" to be a modifier on "planet", the sentence definitely rankles.

Thoughts? --TotoBaggins 01:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, planet has been well defined by the International Astronomical Union since lat year, for the Solar System at least, and dwarf planets are not a kind of planet. Note the dwarf planet section in planet. Wikipedia uses the offical definition of planet, so the sentence is correct. I agree dwarf planet is unclear, and I don't like it. Dwarf stars are stars (but minor planets are not planets). Saros136 07:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Additional refs

Ther should be little bit more about the atmosphere!

  • C. de Bergha, V.I. Morozmaltese, F.W. Taylor, D. Crisp, B. Bézarda, L.V. Zasova (2006). "The composition of the atmosphere of Venus below 100 km altitude: An overview". Planetary and Space Science 54 (13-14): 1389-1397. DOI:10.1016/j.pss.2006.04.020. 
  • Fredric W. Taylor (2006). "Venus before Venus Express". Planetary and Space Science 54 (13-14): 1249-1262. DOI:10.1016/j.pss.2006.04.031. 
  • Vladimir A. Krasnopolsky (2006). "Chemical composition of Venus atmosphere and clouds: Some unsolved problems". Planetary and Space Science 54 (13-14): 1352-1359. DOI:10.1016/j.pss.2006.04.019.  --Stone 15:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-major axis number seems to be wrong

I just noticed that the Semi-major axis distance given seems to be inconsistent with the Aphelion and Perihelion distances. It's currently Aphelion 109,941,849 km, Perihelion 108,476,002 km, but the Semi-major axis is stated as being 108,208,926 km. Now this doesn't seem to make sense to me, as it shouldn't be possible for the average to be lower than the Perihelion (should it?). So, I put the figures into my calculator and it seems the Semi-major axis should be 109,208,926 km, this is the same as what's given except for one number (an 8 instead of a 9). So I assume that it was just a typo, so I'll put in the 109 figure. I'm taking the precaution to ask here as I'm not totally sure about it, but if it is wrong then please undo it. --Hibernian 18:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plate tectonics.

I'm a little confused. I'm no scientist, but there appears to be two conflicting statements in article about plate tectonics. In the opening paragraphs the article states:

Venus is thought to undergo periodic episodes of plate tectonics, in which the crust is subducted rapidly within a few million years...

But in the Internal structure section, it states:

The principal difference between the two planets is the lack of plate tectonics on Venus, likely due to the dry surface and mantle.

So which is it? Does Venus have plate tectonics or not? Black-Velvet 09:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

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