Page 2 She's really hot
One question amateur astronomers are often asked is, “what's that bright star in the west after sunset?”
It's also the easiest to answer, Venus stands out like a beacon in the evening sky. It is so bright for 2 reasons, firstly it is the nearest planet to Earth and also because it's covered in clouds that reflect light beautifully.
Those of us old enough to remember Dan Dare in the Eagle comic will have seen pictures of a second rather warmer Earth, teeming with life. Unfortunately the truth is very different. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, even hotter than Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. All those clouds keep all the heat in, a sort of extreme greenhouse effect similar to what we hear about in the news. Temperatures reach 460 degrees centigrade. That's hot enough to melt lead.
After that uncomfortable fact, things get much worse. The atmosphere does have some water vapour, but it's mostly dilute sulphuric acid, not a good place to go for a walk. When the Russians first got a spaceship to land on Venus in the 1975, it took some pictures and started to dissolve.
In the 1990s the USA sent an orbiting spaceship, equipped with some clever radar that could see through the clouds and make the first maps. Unlike any other planet all the mountains and craters (bar one) were given female names, even Billie Holiday is there. The exception is a range of mountains named after Scottish physicist James Maxwell. I wonder what he would think about being the only man on the planet of a goddess.
Charles Oates. Vega Baja astronomy group.
For more information on the group and meetings please visit:
https://sites.google.com/site/vegabajaastronomy/.
Venus
QF Focus Magazine
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