Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. As the brightest natural object in Earth's night sky after the Moon, Venus can cast shadows and can be visible to the naked eye in broad daylight. Venus's orbit is smaller than that of Earth, but its maximal elongation is 47°; thus, at latitudes with a day-night cycle, it is most readily visible for up to a few hours following the start of sunset or before sunrise. At times, it has been seen in a completely dark sky. Venus orbits the Sun every 224.7 Earth days. It has a synodic day length of 117 Earth days and a sidereal rotation period of 243 Earth days. Consequently, it takes longer to rotate about its axis than any other planet in the Solar System, and does so in the opposite direction to all but Uranus. This means that the Sun rises from its western horizon and sets in its east. Venus does not have any moons, a distinction it shares only with Mercury among the planets in the Solar System.
Venus Express (VEX) was the first Venus exploration mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). Launched in November 2005, it arrived at Venus in April 2006 and began continuously sending back science data from its polar orbit around Venus. Equipped with seven scientific instruments, the main objective of the mission was the long term observation of the Venusian atmosphere. The observation over such long periods of time had never been done in previous missions to Venus, and was key to a better understanding of the atmospheric dynamics. It was hoped that such studies can contribute to an understanding of atmospheric dynamics in general, while also contributing to an understanding of climate change on Earth. ESA concluded the mission in December 2014.
Venera 4, also designated 4V-1 No.310, was a probe in the Soviet Venera program for the exploration of Venus. The probe comprised a lander, designed to enter the Venusian atmosphere and parachute to the surface, and a carrier/flyby spacecraft, which carried the lander to Venus and served as a communications relay for it.
Venera 13 was part of the Soviet Venera program meant to explore Venus.
Venera 14 was a probe in the Soviet Venera program for the exploration of Venus.
Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus is the third novel in the Lucky Starr series, six juvenile science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov that originally appeared under the pseudonym Paul French. The novel was first published by Doubleday & Company in 1954. Since 1972, reprints have included a foreword by Asimov explaining that advancing knowledge of conditions on Venus have rendered the novel's descriptions of that world inaccurate.
Works of fiction about the planet Venus have been written since before the 19th century. Its impenetrable cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on conditions at its surface; as it is very similar in size to Earth but closer to the Sun, the planet was often depicted as warmer but still habitable by humans. Depictions of Venus as a lush, verdant paradise, an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s, when science had revealed some aspects of Venus but not yet the harsh nature of its surface conditions. Some other stories portrayed it as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. When portrayed, the native sentient inhabitants, Venusians, were generally portrayed as gentle, ethereal and beautiful. Overall, Venus was considered to have much less of an established setting than its sister planet, Mars.
Cytherean is an adjective literally meaning of Cythera. Cythera is a small Greek island, southeast of the Peloponnesus, and a legendary birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). The word Cytherean was first applied to the goddess and later, due to word taboo, to the planet Venus that had been named after the goddess.
Queen of Outer Space is a 1958 American science fiction feature film shot in DeLuxe Color and CinemaScope. Produced by Ben Schwalb and directed by Edward Bernds, it stars Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming, and Laurie Mitchell. The screenplay by Charles Beaumont, about a revolt against a cruel Venusian queen, is based on an idea supplied by Ben Hecht and originally titled Queen of the Universe. Upon its release, the film was promoted by Allied Artists and distributed to some locations as a double feature with Frankenstein 1970 starring Boris Karloff
Venusian Lullaby is an original novel written by Paul Leonard and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the First Doctor, Ian and Barbara.
The atmosphere of Venus is the layer of gases surrounding Venus. It is composed primarily of supercritical carbon dioxide and is much denser and hotter than that of Earth. The temperature at the surface is 740 K, and the pressure is 93 bar (1,350 psi), roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) underwater on Earth. The Venusian atmosphere supports opaque clouds of sulfuric acid, making optical Earth-based and orbital observation of the surface impossible. Information about the topography has been obtained exclusively by radar imaging. Aside from carbon dioxide, the other main component is nitrogen. Other chemical compounds are present only in trace amounts.
"The Weapon Too Dreadful To Use" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 1939 issue of Amazing Stories and reprinted in the August 1965 issue of Amazing and the 1972 collection The Early Asimov. "The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use" was the eleventh story written by Asimov, and the second to be published.
"History Lesson" is a science fiction short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1949 in the magazine Startling Stories.
Milcząca Gwiazda, literal English translation The Silent Star, is a 1960 East German/Polish color science fiction film based on the 1951 science fiction novel The Astronauts by Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem. It was directed by Kurt Maetzig, and stars Günther Simon, Julius Ongewe and Yoko Tani. The film was first released by Progress Film in East Germany, running 93 min. Variously dubbed and cut versions were also released in English under other titles: First Spaceship on Venus, Planet of the Dead, and Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply.
The Planetary series of stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum is a series of short stories, published in Wonder Stories and Astounding Stories in the 1930s, which are set upon various planets and moons of the Solar System.
The possibility of life on Venus is a subject of interest in astrobiology due to Venus's proximity and similarities to Earth. To date, no definitive evidence has been found of past or present life there. In the early 1960s, studies conducted via spacecraft demonstrated that the current Venusian environment is extreme compared to Earth's. Studies continue to question whether life could have existed on the planet's surface before a runaway greenhouse effect took hold, and whether a relict biosphere could persist high in the modern Venusian atmosphere.
Five Against Venus, written by Philip Latham, is a science-fiction novel first published in the United States in 1952 by the John C. Winston Company. Philip Latham was the nom de plume of Robert S. Richardson, a professional astronomer who also provided technical assistance on movies such as Destination Moon and wrote scripts for the Captain Video television series.
Old Venus is a "retro Venus science fiction"-themed anthology edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, that was published on March 3, 2015. All of the stories are set on the planet Venus as styled in the pre-space probe pulp magazines of the 1930s through the 1950s, in which it was considered a planet where humans could live.
The Blue Barbarians is a science fiction novel by American author Stanton A. Coblentz. It was first published in Amazing Stories magazine in 1931 and first published in book form in 1958 by Avalon Books. The novel is a satire on the American economic and political system as they existed in 1931.
CubeSat UV Experiment (CUVE) is a space mission concept to study the atmospheric processes of the planet Venus with a small satellite. Specifically, the orbiter mission would study an enigmatic ultraviolet light absorber of unknown composition situated within the planet's uppermost cloud layer that absorbs about half the solar radiation downwelling in the planet's atmosphere.
