Terrestrial Planet · Updated May 2026
Venus.
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the hottest world in the solar system, with a surface temperature of about 465 °C — hot enough to melt lead. A dense CO₂ atmosphere 92 times the surface pressure of Earth's drives a runaway greenhouse effect, while sulfuric-acid clouds blanket the planet. It also rotates backwards: a Venusian day is longer than its 225-day year.
Open Venus in the viewer →Key facts
Venus rotates so slowly (243 Earth days per rotation) and in retrograde that the viewer's real-time scene shows the surface pattern moving the opposite way to every other inner planet. Set time speed to 50× and you can see it.
Atmosphere
96.5% carbon dioxide, 3.5% nitrogen. The cloud deck sits 50–70 km up, made of sulfuric acid droplets. Super-rotating winds in the upper clouds circle the planet every four Earth days — sixty times faster than the surface rotates. Probes that have landed survived only minutes before being crushed and melted.
Surface
Volcanic plains cover roughly 80% of the surface, dotted with thousands of volcanoes. Maxwell Montes, the highest peak, rises 11 km. Active volcanism was confirmed in 2023 from re-analysed Magellan radar data, making Venus the second confirmed volcanically active world after Io.
Interior
Likely similar in bulk composition to Earth — iron core, silicate mantle, basaltic crust — but the lack of plate tectonics means heat escapes through periodic global resurfacing events rather than continuous tectonic spreading.
Formation
Formed at a similar time and from similar material to Earth. The leading hypothesis for the runaway greenhouse: as the Sun brightened, Venus's oceans evaporated, water vapour amplified the warming, and ultraviolet radiation eventually split the H₂O so the hydrogen escaped to space.
Orbit
Average distance from the Sun: 108.2 million km. Orbital period 224.7 Earth days. Axial tilt of 177.4° means Venus is essentially upside-down — the source of its retrograde rotation.
Notable missions
- Venera programme (1961–84 · Past) — Soviet missions; Venera 7 (1970) was the first probe to land on another planet, and Venera 13 sent back colour surface photos in 1982.
- Magellan (1990–94 · Past) — NASA orbiter that radar-mapped 98% of the surface through the cloud deck.
- DAVINCI / VERITAS / EnVision (2030s · Planned) — NASA and ESA missions selected to return to Venus, focused on atmosphere chemistry and surface mapping.
How to view Venus in 3D
This page is part of an interactive 3D solar system viewer built with Three.js, WebGL 2.0, and custom GLSL shaders. Venus orbits the Sun in real time alongside every other planet, with adjustable time speed, scale sliders, and a fly mode that lets you pilot a spacecraft between bodies under realistic gravity.
Fly to Venus now →Frequently asked questions
Why is Venus hotter than Mercury?
A 92-bar CO₂ atmosphere traps heat through the greenhouse effect. Mercury has no atmosphere, so its dayside heat radiates straight back into space.
Could humans ever live on Venus?
Not on the surface. Some proposals look at floating habitats around 50 km altitude, where the temperature and pressure are roughly Earth-like.
Does Venus have moons?
No.
Sources & methodology
Numbers cross-referenced with the sources below; surface and atmosphere descriptions reflect findings as of May 2026. Renderings in the 3D viewer use textures based on Solar System Scope and NASA imagery.