Atmosphere of Venus
In 1761, Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov observed an arc of light surrounding the part of Venus off the Sun's disc at the beginning of the egress phase of the transit and concluded that Venus has an atmosphere. In 1940, Rupert Wildt calculated that the amount of CO in the Venusian atmosphere would raise surface temperature above the boiling point for water. This was confirmed when Mariner 2 made radiometer measurements of the temperature in 1962. In 1967, Venera 4 confirmed that the atmosphere consisted primarily of carbon dioxide.
Geology of Venus
Liquid water and ice are nonexistent on Venus, and thus the only agent of physical erosion to be found (apart from thermal erosion by lava flows) is wind. Wind tunnel experiments have shown that the density of the atmosphere allows the transport of sediments with even a small breeze. Therefore, the seeming rarity of eolian land forms must have some other cause. This implies that transportable sand-size particles are relatively scarce on the planet; which would be a result of very slow rates of mechanical erosion. The process that is most important for the production of sediment on Venus may be crater-forming impact events, which is bolstered by the seeming association between impact craters and downwind eolian land forms.