- Venus is named after the Roman goddess of Love – Venus.
- Venus is almost the same size as Earth. It has a diameter of 12,104 km.
- It is thought that Venus is made up of a central iron core, a rocky mantle and a silicate crust.
- A year on Venus is 225 Earth days.
- Venus’s surface temperature to 471°C – making it the hottest planet in our solar system.
- Venus rotates in the opposite direction to most planets – this may be because of a collision at some point in history.
- Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky, only the moon is brighter than Venus. The planet is so bright that on a clear day it can be seen during the daytime.
- The atmospheric pressure on Venus is 92 times greater than on Earth.
- The Russians sent the first space probe to study Venus in 1961 – it was called the Venera 1.
- The Venus fly trap plant gets its name from the planet as the atmosphere of Venus sometimes swallows smaller planets.
