Venus is the second planet from the Sun and because it is inside Earth's orbit, it appears to closely follow the Sun across the sky.
Itās the third brightest object in the sky, but due to the Sun's brightness, it only tends to be visible just before sunrise or just after sunset.
When the orbits of Venus and Earth align, Venus is the closest planet to our own, making it the simplest to send a spacecraft to. We began sending them as early as 1962.
Like all astronomical objects, its exact nature has been a mystery for human beings for almost our entire existence.
Our spacecraft discovered that Venus' surface is the hottest and most inhospitable in the solar system, reaching temperatures of 462Ā°C (864Ā°F) ā even hotter than Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. This is due to Venus' thick, toxic atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, which traps and retains heat.
They also landed on the planet, found that Venus had a rocky surface with many volcanoes, mountains, and plains, and took the first photos of another world ever taken before succumbing to the extreme conditions after only a few hours.
The pictures showed a barren, inhospitable landscape with temperatures and pressures too extreme for complex life.
However, there is speculation that life may exist in the upper cloud layers of Venus, 50 km (30 mi) away from the surface. At this altitude, temperatures range between 30 and 80 Ā°C (86 and 176 Ā°F). The European Space Agency is planning to send a probe to Venus in the coming years to investigate further.
In the distant future, this relatively habitable zone may host cloud cities, supported economically by āminingā gasses in the upper atmosphere.
