What planet is hotter than Earth?

Venus, Earth’s twin sister

Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System, even though Mercury is twice as close to the Sun and receives four times more solar energy. The reason? Venus’ thick, carbon dioxide atmosphere causes a runaway greenhouse effect. At the surface, Venus has an atmosphere 50 times denser than Earth’s, and average surface temperatures of 470 degrees Celsius (878 degrees Fahrenheit) — hot enough to melt lead.

We don’t know how Venus transformed from a potentially habitable world to its current hellish state. By studying Venus, scientists learn how Earth-like planets evolve and what conditions exist on Earth-sized exoplanets. Venus also helps scientists model Earth’s climate, and serves as a cautionary tale on how dramatically a planet’s climate can change.

Venus Facts

Surface temperature: 440°C (820°F) to 480°C (900°F)
Average distance from Sun: 108 million kilometers (67 million miles), or 38% closer to the Sun than Earth
Diameter: 12,104 kilometers (7,521 miles), Earth is just 5% wider
Volume: 928 billion km3 (223 billion mi3), Venus could fit inside Earth 1.1 times
Gravity: 8.9 m/s², or 90% that of Earth’s
Solar day: 243 Earth days
Solar year: 225 Earth days
Atmosphere: 96% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1% other gases

How we study Venus

Venus was the first planet to be visited by a spacecraft. In 1962, NASA’s Mariner 2 flew by the planet and discovered it was a hot world with no self-generated magnetic field. The Soviet Union became the world leader in early Venus exploration after that, sending multiple atmospheric probes and as many as ten landers to the planet. To this day, they remain the only nation to have landed spacecraft on the surface and transmitted both data and images back to Earth.

Magellan also found no sign of plate tectonics. On Earth, plate tectonics is a process in which sections of the planet’s outer crust glide over the mantle — the rocky inner layer above the core — allowing heat to escape through volcanism. Since we think Venus’s interior is similar to Earth’s, the lack of plate tectonics means that volcanoes on Venus must work differently than on Earth.

The European Space Agency launched the Venus Express orbiter in 2006. By observing hotspots on the surface and changing sulfur dioxide levels in the atmosphere over six years, the spacecraft collected the best evidence yet of active volcanism on Venus. Venus Express also discovered granite-like rocks across the planet that require abundant liquid water to form, solidifying the idea of the planet having past oceans.

Learn more

• Every picture from Venus’ surface, ever
• The quest for life on Venus
• Planetary Radio: We’re Going Back to Venus

The European Space Agency launched the Venus Express orbiter in 2006. By observing hotspots on the surface and changing sulfur dioxide levels in the atmosphere over 6 years, the spacecraft collected the best evidence yet of active volcanism on Venus. Venus Express also discovered granite-like rocks across the planet that require abundant liquid water to form, solidifying the idea of the planet having past oceans.

Upcoming Venus missions

NASA’s DAVINCI mission will launch between 2028 and 2030. It consists of an orbiter and an atmospheric descent probe. The probe will make high precision
measurements of trace gases in Venus’ atmosphere, helping firmly
determine how much water Venus’ oceans had and how long they existed.

NASA’s VERITAS orbiter will launch in the 2030s. It will have a radar instrument with up to 100 times higher resolution than Magellan. This will give scientists a better handle on Venus’ geology and evolution and also reveal why the planet lacks large-scale plate tectonics.

The European Space Agency’s EnVision mission will launch no earlier than 2031. The orbiter will provide a comprehensive view of Venus, from the core all the way to its upper atmosphere.

India aims to launch a Venus orbiter called Shukrayaan in December 2024 equipped with a radar and infrared camera to map the surface. It will have a payload capacity of about 100 kilograms and study Venus for four years from a polar orbit of 200 x 600 kilometers. The spacecraft will carry both Indian and international science instruments. One, called VIRAL (Venus Infrared Atmospheric Gases Linker), will be co-developed by the French and Russian space agencies.

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Interesting facts about Venus

Expand your mind with these top eight facts about the planet Venus.

1. A day on Venus is longer than a year

It takes Venus longer to rotate once on its axis than to complete one orbit of the Sun. That’s 243 Earth days to rotate once – the longest rotation of any planet in the Solar System – and only 224.7 Earth days to complete an orbit of the Sun.

2. Venus is hotter than Mercury – despite being further away from the Sun

Its mean temperature is 462°C. This is because of the high concentration of carbon dioxide in Venus’ atmosphere, which works to produce an intense greenhouse effect. Heat is trapped in the atmosphere like a blanket, causing the temperature of the planet to be much higher than its proximity to the Sun would suggest.

3. Unlike the other planets in our solar system, Venus spins clockwise on its axis

All other planets spin anti-clockwise on their axis and orbit the Sun in an anti-clockwise direction. Venus also orbits the Sun anti-clockwise, but its unusual axis rotation is due to being upside down – it was knocked off its upright position earlier in its history!

Astronomers believe that at some point, a colliding celestial body tilted Venus so far off its original position that it is now upside down. The only other planet to spin in a weird direction is Uranus which spins on its side, probably the result of another collision early on in its life.

4. Venus is the second brightest natural object in the night sky after the Moon

The clouds of sulphuric acid in Venus’ atmosphere make it reflective and shiny, obscuring our view of its surface. Its brightness makes it visible even during the day – if it’s clear and you know where to look.

5. Venus has 90 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth

That’s about the same as the pressure found at a depth of 1km in the Earth’s oceans.

6. Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty

It is thought that Venus was named after the beautiful Roman goddess (counterpart to the Greek Aphrodite) due to its bright, shining appearance in the sky. Of the five planets known to ancient astronomers, it would have been the brightest.

7. Venus was the first planet to have its motions plotted across the sky, as early as the second millennium BC

Because Venus is easy to spot with the naked eye, it is impossible to say who discovered the planet. But over the centuries we have been able to measure Venus’ motions, including the rare transit of Venus, when the planet appears to cross in front of the Sun.

8. We tend to say ‘Venusian’ not ‘Venerian’

Following the rules of Latin, we should say ‘venerean’ as the adjective to describe things related to Venus. However, this is deemed to be too close to the word ‘venereal’. The more commonly used word is ‘Venusian’ despite its clunky etymology.

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