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Venus has a diameter of 12,103.6 km (7,520.8 mi)—only 638.4 km (396.7 mi) less than Earth's—and its mass is 81.5% of Earth's, making it the third-smallest planet in the Solar System. Conditions on the Venusian surface differ radically from those on Earth because its dense atmosphere is 96.5% carbon dioxide, with most of the remaining 3.5% ...
Venus has an orbit with a semi-major axis of 0.723 au (108,200,000 km; 67,200,000 mi ), and an eccentricity of 0.007. [1] [2] The low eccentricity and comparatively small size of its orbit give Venus the least range in distance between perihelion and aphelion of the planets: 1.46 million km. The planet orbits the Sun once every 225 days [3] and ...
In the asteroid belt alone there are estimated to be between 1.1 and 1.9 million objects with a radius above 0.5 km, many of which are in the range 0.5–1.0 km. Countless more have a radius below 0.5 km. Very few objects in this size range have been explored or even imaged. The exceptions are objects that have been visited by a probe, or have ...
According to data from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter altimeters, nearly 51% of the surface is located within 500 meters (1,600 feet) of the median radius of 6,052 km (3,761 mi); only 2% of the surface is located at elevations greater than 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the median radius.
The first successful flyby Venus probe was the American Mariner 2 spacecraft, which flew past Venus in 1962, coming within 35,000 km. A modified Ranger Moon probe, it established that Venus has practically no intrinsic magnetic field and measured the temperature of the planet's atmosphere to be approximately 500 °C (773 K ; 932 °F ).
Mercury has an orbital speed of 47.4 km/s (29.5 mi/s), whereas Earth's orbital speed is 29.8 km/s (18.5 mi/s). Therefore, the spacecraft must make a larger change in velocity ( delta-v ) to get to Mercury and then enter orbit, [185] as compared to the delta-v required for, say, Mars planetary missions .
The surface of Venus contains almost 1000 impact craters. However, unlike some planets in our system, Venus' thick atmosphere creates a strong shield that decelerates, flattens, and can fracture incoming projectiles. The Venusian surface is devoid of small craters (≤30–50 km in size) because of the effect the atmosphere has on small bodies.
After waiting for most of the day, he eventually saw the transit when clouds obscuring the Sun cleared at about 15:15, half an hour before sunset. His observations allowed him to make a well-informed guess for the diameter of Venus and an estimate of the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun (59.4 million mi (95.6 million km; 0.639 AU)).