Venus compared to Earth

Almost the Earth’s size, with a crushing carbon-dioxide atmosphere: the hottest planet, covered in volcanic plains.

How big is Venus compared to Earth?

Venus is roughly nine tenths as wide as Earth.

Venus orbits on average about three quarters as far from the Sun as Earth does.

Venus takes about 7 months to go once round the Sun.

Venus turns round once in about 8 months; Earth takes about 24 hours. And Venus spins backwards.

On Venus, sunrise comes round again every 4 months. It is shorter than Venus’s own spin, because Venus spins backwards.

Venus has roughly four fifths the mass of Earth.

Venus has roughly nine tenths the volume of Earth.

On Venus you would weigh roughly nine tenths of what you weigh on Earth.

Venus runs from 447 to 477 °C. Earth runs from −89.2 to 56.7 °C.

What it is like: Rocky, volcanic plains, thousands of volcanoes.
Its weather: The atmosphere is 96.5% carbon dioxide, and the surface is at 464 °C — hotter than Mercury.
The machines we sent: Soviet Venera probes were the first to land on another planet, in the 1970s.

The numbers

Across	12,104 km
Distance from the Sun, on average	0.7233 AU · 108.2 million km · sunlight takes 6 minutes 1 second
Once round its orbit	224.7 days
Sunrise to sunrise	116.8 days — and it turns the other way, so the Sun there rises in the west
How big it looks	9.6 to 65 arcseconds, depending on how far away it is — the full Moon is about 1,800
Temperature	464 °C (from 447 to 477)
Also found there	carbon dioxide, sulphur, rock