Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun, at a distance of 108.2 million km/ 67.24 mi or 0.7 AU receiving the sun’s light in 6 minutes. Venus has a radius of 6.051 km or 3.760 miles and a diameter of 12.104 km or 7.521 mi, slightly smaller than Earth. It has a mass of 4.87 × 10²⁴ kg, or 85% that of Earth.

Venus lies within Earth’s orbit, and so never appears to venture far from the Sun, either setting in the west just after dusk or rising in the east a bit before dawn. Venus orbits the Sun every 224.7 Earth days.[18] With a rotation period of 243 Earth days, it takes longer to rotate about its axis than any planet in the Solar System and does so in the opposite direction to all but Uranus (meaning the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east).[19] Venus does not have any moons, a distinction it shares only with Mercury among planets in the Solar System.[20]

Venus is a terrestrial planet and is sometimes called Earth’s “sister planet” because of their similar size, mass, proximity to the Sun, and bulk composition. It is radically different from Earth in other respects. It has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96% carbon dioxide.

The atmospheric pressure at the planet’s surface is 92 times that of Earth, or roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) underwater on Earth. Venus is by far the hottest planet in the Solar System, with a mean surface temperature of 735 K (462 °C; 863 °F), even though Mercury is closer to the Sun.

Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light. It may have had water oceans in the past,[21][22] but these would have vaporized as the temperature rose due to a runaway greenhouse effect.[23] The water has probably photodissociated, and the free hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field.[24] Venus’s surface is a dry desertscape interspersed with slab-like rocks and is periodically resurfaced by volcanism.