Venus

Earth's evil twin

Vital statistics

• Mean radius: 6,052 kilometres
• Mass: 4.87 × 10²⁴ kilograms
• Surface gravity: 8.87 metres per second squared
• Sidereal rotation: 243 days (retrograde)
• Orbital period: 225 days
• Mean temperature: +464 °C
• Known moons: 0
• Axial tilt: 177.4 degrees

Field notes

• A day on Venus is longer than its year: one rotation takes 243 Earth days, one orbit just 225. And it spins backwards — the Sun rises in the west.
• Surface pressure is 92 times Earth's, like being 900 m deep in the ocean. The Soviet landers that reached the surface survived about an hour before being cooked and crushed.
• It rains concentrated sulfuric acid — but the rain never lands. It evaporates 25 km above the 464 °C surface.
• Venus is hotter than Mercury despite being twice as far from the Sun. That's a runaway greenhouse effect, and it's why we study it.

Data: NASA Planetary Fact Sheets. Explore the full interactive 3D map at the home page — every orbit is computed from real Keplerian elements.