equator, stretching almost halfway around the planet. 
    After the Sun and Moon, Venus is the brightest object in our sky. It appears before sunrise as the morning star or after sunset as the evening star. Indeed, Venus is so bright that in dark areas on Earth its light casts shadows. Beautiful as it is to us, though, the planet’s light is mainly from sunlight reflecting off the deadly clouds of sulfuric acid. 
    Venus presents an intriguing scientific puzzle: namely, why a planet physically so similar to Earth evolved into such an inhospitable place. The planet’s proximity to the Sun and its peculiar rotational pattern may be partially responsible. On average, Venus’s distance from the Sun is