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Venus is the goddess of love in the mythology. And that not without a reason, because she is not only the hottest planet in the solar system but also the hottest sweeper that turns the head of all other planets. She is of extraordinary beauty and grace. The planet Venus was named after the goddess, probably because it is the brightest object in the sky with the exception of the sun and moon. And just like the goddess, the planet Venus is unusual in many ways.

On the surface of Venus it gets up to 400 degrees hot, no matter if day or night. This seems astonishing at first sight, because Venus is only the second closest planet to the sun. The reason for the high temperatures is the dense atmosphere of Venus, which stores heat and prevents it from escaping. This is also called the greenhouse effect.

Many people consider the morning or evening star to be the brightest star in the sky. But behind both concepts is actually only the planet Venus and is not a real star at all. Venus orbits the sun in a narrower orbit than the earth. It is therefore faster and overtakes the earth at regular intervals. If it stands in front of the earth, it can be seen as an evening star and overtakes the earth, we can admire it only in the morning, as the so called morning star.

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With its 12.104 km the Venus is almost as big as the earth and therefore it is not called the sister planet of the earth without a reason. But this refers only to the size. With a deeper look in numbers you can see the differ of both. A day on earth lasts 24 hours. This is the time in which it revolves around itself. Venus, on the other hand, rotates around itself much more slowly. It needs 243 earth days for this. For a circumnavigation of the sun, however, it only needs 225 earth days. This means that a Venus day lasts longer than a Venus year. Venus has an almost circular rotation around the sun and is only 0.718 to 0.728 astronomical units away from our sun. Venus is also just outside the habitable zone. This is the area in a solar system where life can exist on planets.

To own at least one moon is the normal case for planets. Our earth has one, Mars has two, Jupiter has 67 (!) and so on... Only Mercury and Venus have none. But since Mercury is smaller than Venus, it is speculated that in distant past, Mercury was a moon of Venus or they both were double planet system. Even if this sounds too speculative, many scientists agree that Venus had a moon. Then an asteroid is said to have fallen into the Venus and thus changed the direction of rotation of the Venus. Because Venus is the only planet in the solar system that rotates the other way around. And this is said to have caused the moon to impact with Venus.

The asteroid impact on the Venus could also be the reason for its heat, because it is assumed that the volcanic activities on Venus are due to the impacts. The Venus has more volcanoes than any other planets in the solar system. The highest volcano is called Maat Mons and with eight kilometers it is almost as high as Mount Everest.

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