Advance in science comes by laying brick upon brick, not by
sudden erection of fairy palaces. - J. S. Huxley Astronomers
refer to Venus as Earth's sister planet. Both are similar in
size, mass, density and volume. Both formed about the same time
and condensed out of the same nebula. However, during the last
few years scientists have found that the kinship ends here.
Venus is very different from the Earth. It has no oceans and is
surrounded by a heavy atmosphere composed mainly of carbon
dioxide with virtually no water vapor. Its clouds are composed
of sulfuric acid droplets. At the surface, the atmospheric
pressure is 92 times that of the Earth's at sea-level. Venus is
scorched with a surface temperature of about 482° C (900° F).
This high temperature is primarily due to a runaway greenhouse
effect caused by the heavy atmosphere of carbon dioxide.
Sunlight passes through the atmosphere to heat the surface of
the planet. Heat is radiated out, but is trapped by the dense
atmosphere and not allowed to escape int