Venus

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Venus

• By James Menke
• Kevin Mott
• Travis Angell

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Statistics

• Mass (kg) 4.869e24
• Mass (Earth 1) 81476
• Equatorial radius (km) 6,051.8
• Equatorial radius (Earth 1) .94886
• Mean density (gm/cm3) 5.25
• Mean distance from the Sun (km) 108,200,000
• Mean distance from the Sun (Earth 1) 0.7233
• Rotational period (days) -243.0187
• Orbital period (days) 224.701
• Mean orbital velocity (km/sec) 35.02
• Orbital eccentricity 0.0068
• Tilt of axis (degrees) 177.36

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Statistics

• Orbital inclination (degrees) 3.394
• Equatorial surface gravity (m/sec2) 8.87
• Equatorial escape velocity (km/sec) 10.36
• Visual geometric albedo 0.65
• Magnitude (Vo) -4.4
• Mean surface temperature 482C
• Atmospheric pressure (bars) 92
• Atmospheric composition
• Carbon dioxide 96
• Nitrogen 3 
• Trace amounts of Sulfur dioxide, water vapor,
• carbon monoxide, argon, helium, neon,
• hydrogen chloride, and hydrogen fluoride.  

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Characteristics

• Surface temperature 482 C (900 F)
• This high temperature is primarily due to a
  runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavy
  atmosphere of carbon dioxide.
• Venus' surface appears to have been completely
  resurfaced 300 to 500 million years ago.
• Liquid water does not exist on the surface.

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Characteristics

• Venus is scarred by numerous impact craters
  distributed randomly over its surface.
• At least 85 of the Venusian surface is covered
  with volcanic rock.
• Some features that are unique to Venus include
  coronae and arachnoids.

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History

• Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love
  and beauty.
• The earliest recorded observations of Venus come
  from the Babylonians on the famous Venus Tablet
  dated circa 1500 B.C.

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History

• Venus has been observed in detail by both
  Aristotle and Ptolemy during the geocentric
  system era.
• In 1610, Galileo Galilei was the first to observe
  the phases of Venus using his refractor.
• The transit of Venus marked improvement in our
  knowledge of Venus and of our Solar System.

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Internal Structure

• Core Mostly Iron and Nickel
• around 6000km
• Mantel Made up of molten rocks
• Little convection
• Crust Made up of volcanic rock
• Stronger and thicker than Earth, keeps getting
  thicker

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Magnetic Field

• What little magnetic field is from interaction
  between ionosphere and solar winds, not dynamo

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Mantel Movement

• Similar to convection
• Generates heat through decay of radioactive
  materials
• Results of movement
• Might cause tectonic deformation
• When crust breaks
• lava flows - floods surface and becomes thicker

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Atmosphere

• Over 90 times more dense than Earths atmosphere
• 96 Carbon Dioxide rest Nitrogen with small
  amounts of other
• Clouds composed of sulfuric acid
• Small amounts of water vapor high in atmosphere

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Greenhouse Effect

• Causes Venuss surface to be hotter than
  Mercury's surface
• Average heat around 890 degrees Fahrenheit
• Caused by the 96 CO2 in atmosphere
• What caused the atmosphere to be composed of all
  this CO2?

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High CO2

• Venus formed too close to the sun and therefore
  water couldnt develop into oceans
• Therefore plants couldnt form and CO2 couldnt
  be dissolved in water and stored in carbonate
  rocks
• Since CO2 kept building up, it created a runaway
  greenhouse effect

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Runaway Greenhouse Effect

• High amounts of CO2 creates extreme heating.
• Works just like Earth
• Lets visible light in
• Doesnt allow IR light in
• Light hits surface and reradiates as IR
• CO2 wont let heat out

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Venuss surface

• Scientist can only see using radio waves because
  clouds are too thick
• 85 of surface is lowlands
• 2 large continent areas

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Venuss volcanoes

• Rift Valleys
• Meteor Craters
• Faults with up/down motion
• Shield Volcanoes
• Pancake volcanoes
• developed by thick lava
• Coronae
• collapsed domes over large magma chambers

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Venuss plate tectonics

• No plate tectonics
• Smaller and therefore cooled off faster creating
  a thicker lithosphere that prevents plate
  tectonics
• Although no plate tectonics, Venus still goes
  through a resurfacing of its own
• 500 million yrs ago Venus resurfaced
• Heat in mantle reaches limit where crust is weak
• Over 100 million yrs, subducting occurs on large
  scale

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• Questions?