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Note that the meridional circulation is much lower than the zonal circulation, which transports heat between the day and night sides of the planet. All winds on Venus are ultimately driven by convection. [3] Hot air rises in the equatorial zone, where solar heating is concentrated and flows to the poles.
In fact, through a telescope Venus at greatest elongation appears less than half full due to Schröter's effect first noticed in 1793 and shown in 1996 as due to its thick atmosphere. [15] [16] On rare occasions, Venus can actually be seen in both the morning (before sunrise) and evening (after sunset) on the same day.
Venus is the place of the first interplanetary human presence, mediated through robotic missions, with the first successful landings on another planet and extraterrestrial body other than the Moon. Currently in orbit is Akatsuki, and other probes routinely use Venus for gravity assist manoeuvres capturing some data about Venus on the way. [253]
The terraforming of Venus or the terraformation of Venus is the hypothetical process of engineering the global environment of the planet Venus in order to make it suitable for human habitation. [1] [2] [3] Adjustments to the existing environment of Venus to support human life would require at least three major changes to the planet's atmosphere ...
Over time, bodies in the Solar System are randomly impacted, so the more craters a surface has, the older it is. Compared to Mercury, the Moon and other such bodies, Venus has very few craters. In part, this is because Venus's dense atmosphere burns up smaller meteorites before they hit the surface.
Venus' oceans may have boiled away in a runaway greenhouse effect. A runaway greenhouse effect involving carbon dioxide and water vapor likely occurred on Venus. [22] In this scenario, early Venus may have had a global ocean if the outgoing thermal radiation was below the Simpson–Nakajima limit but above the moist greenhouse limit. [2]
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It is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" due to their similar size, gravity, and bulk composition (Venus is both the closest planet to Earth and the planet closest in size to Earth). The surface of Venus is covered by a dense atmosphere and presents clear evidence of former violent volcanic activity.