The Ancients had christened it the "morning star" and the "evening star" because of its brilliant appearance at dawn and at sunset: in fact, it is the most brilliant object in the sky, excluding the Sun and the Moon. But it is not a star. It is the second planet in the solar system and has remained a mystery for millenniums. When the first telescopic observations revealed that Venus is completely covered by a thick layer of clouds, man's imagination was quick to consider it to be a primordial Eden, inhabited by creatures similar to dinosaurs wandering around in hot marshes among luxuriant vegetation. The fact is, that with a diameter of only 656 kilometers less than that of the Earth, a mass equal to 82% of our planet and a very similar density, Venus was justifyingly considered to be almost a "twin" of our planet: slightly hotter because it is closer to the Sun, but a very good candidate to support life under what was believed to be clouds of condensed water vapor. Instead, the probes sent to explore it in the last twenty years led up to what was a great disappointment: Venus was not only very much different than what it was supposed to be, but turned out to be a nightmarish world, a monster where a robot with steel-plated armor would also have an extremely hard life. The surface is a burning desert: the temperature ranges from 450 to 500 degrees Celsius, which is high enough to melt metals and to transform many substances into steam that we only know about on Earth in a solid or liquid state. The pressure on the surface of this inhospitable planet is analogous to that of a bathyscaph at a depth of 900 meters. The Venusian day lasts four months - just like its night: this means that dawn and sunset only occur two times in a Venusian year, which lasts 224 Earth days. The Sun rises in the west and sets in the east because Venus turns in the opposite direction with respect to all the other planets; however, a hypothetical inhabitant would only notice it at "noon", when the sun is at the peak of its arc in the sky because of the very particular conditions of the extremely dense atmosphere. In fact, it is the atmosphere, which from far away seems to make Venus so similar to the Earth, that is the most "alien" element that can be imagined. Absolutely unbreathable, it is composed of 95-97% carbon dioxide. Night and day, enormous bolts of lightening continuously rip through the sky followed by ear-shattering rolls of thunder. Hot sulfuric acid rain, which sometimes includes a "pinch" of fluosulfonic acid (one of the most powerful corrosives known to science), is suddenly unleashed from the sky. Fiery clouds are whirled around by winds which travel at a velocity of almost 400 kilometers per hour.
The Ancients had christened it the "morning star" and the "evening star" because of its brilliant appearance at dawn and at sunset: in fact, it is the most brilliant object in the sky, excluding the Sun and the Moon. But it is not a star. It is the second planet in the solar system and has remained a mystery for millenniums. When the first telescopic observations revealed that Venus is completely covered by a thick layer of clouds, man's imagination was quick to consider it to be a primordial Eden, inhabited by creatures similar to dinosaurs wandering around in hot marshes among luxuriant vegetation. The fact is, that with a diameter of only 656 kilometers less than that of the Earth, a mass equal to 82% of our planet and a very similar density, Venus was justifyingly considered to be almost a "twin" of our planet: slightly hotter because it is closer to the Sun, but a very good candidate to support life under what was believed to be clouds of condensed water vapor. Instead, the probes sent to explore it in the last twenty years led up to what was a great disappointment: Venus was not only very much different than what it was supposed to be, but turned out to be a nightmarish world, a monster where a robot with steel-plated armor would also have an extremely hard life. The surface is a burning desert: the temperature ranges from 450 to 500 degrees Celsius, which is high enough to melt metals and to transform many substances into steam that we only know about on Earth in a solid or liquid state. The pressure on the surface of this inhospitable planet is analogous to that of a bathyscaph at a depth of 900 meters. The Venusian day lasts four months - just like its night: this means that dawn and sunset only occur two times in a Venusian year, which lasts 224 Earth days. The Sun rises in the west and sets in the east because Venus turns in the opposite direction with respect to all the other planets; however, a hypothetical inhabitant would only notice it at "noon", when the sun is at the peak of its arc in the sky because of the very particular conditions of the extremely dense atmosphere. In fact, it is the atmosphere, which from far away seems to make Venus so similar to the Earth, that is the most "alien" element that can be imagined. Absolutely unbreathable, it is composed of 95-97% carbon dioxide. Night and day, enormous bolts of lightening continuously rip through the sky followed by ear-shattering rolls of thunder. Hot sulfuric acid rain, which sometimes includes a "pinch" of fluosulfonic acid (one of the most powerful corrosives known to science), is suddenly unleashed from the sky. Fiery clouds are whirled around by winds which travel at a velocity of almost 400 kilometers per hour.
