There are eight planets in our solar system, which are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in order of proximity to the Sun. Outside of Neptune there is also Pluto, which was once one of the planets in the solar system, but was later kicked out of the planets by scientists.
Among the eight planets, if we were to choose one of the most well-known, it would be Mars, and in recent years, the world has set off a wave of exploration of Mars. The reason why people pay more attention to Mars is that it is very similar to Earth, which provides the possibility for human beings to move to a "second home" in the future. However, if we talk about similarity alone, Venus is actually more similar to Earth.
Venus is the second closest to the Sun and the Earth is the third closest, with the two planets next to each other. The diameter of Venus is 95% of that of the Earth and its mass is about 80% of that of the Earth, surpassing the similarity between Mars and the Earth. Therefore, Venus and Earth are also known as "sister planets". In addition, Venus has the closest circular orbit of the eight planets and the smallest eccentricity of 0.006811.
The surface of Venus was first observed by humans using radio telescopes as early as the late 1950s. Since then, several probes have been launched to Venus by various countries, such as the Mariner series, the Venus series, the Pioneer, Magellan, etc.
However, as knowledge of Venus has grown, scientists have become increasingly reluctant to continue studying the planet in recent years, instead redirecting their limited scientific resources to the study of other planets such as Mars.
So, why are humans reluctant to continue studying Venus?
According to the Big Bang theory, our universe was born 13.8 billion years ago. At that time, a singularity with infinitely small volume, infinitely large mass, and infinitely large density exploded, and the energy and matter from the explosion expanded rapidly in all directions, and our universe was born.
After the birth of the universe, stars, planets, comets, neutron stars, white dwarfs and black holes were born. Scientists have deduced that our solar system was born about 4.6 billion years ago. The formation of the Sun began with the gravitational collapse of a cloud of hydrogen molecules, and most of the collapsed mass was concentrated in the center, forming the Sun. Because of the Sun's enormous mass, many other bodies soon gathered around it, including the eight planets, nearly 500 moons, and at least 1.2 million asteroids. In addition, there were a number of dwarf planets and comets. In this way, the entire solar system was formed.
Venus was formed at the beginning of the solar system, and at the beginning, it was actually very similar to the Earth, with primitive oceans and a thick primitive atmosphere wrapped around the surface of Venus. It can be said that Venus in this period, also has the basic conditions to breed primitive life.
However, a disaster soon after changed everything on Venus. During that period, the entire solar system was very unstable, and there were many asteroids rampaging through the solar system, making it very vulnerable to "traffic accidents". Unfortunately, a rather massive asteroid hit Venus, and the huge impact changed the angular momentum of Venus, reversing its original west-to-east rotation to an east-to-west rotation.
Since then, Venus has been the only planet in the entire solar system that rotates in a direction other than west to east, and its rotation speed has become extremely slow. For comparison, the rotation period of the Earth is about 24 hours, while the rotation period of Venus is 243 days.
After the rotation speed of Venus drops, the magnetic field also almost disappears. Generally speaking, for a planet to have a magnetic field, it must have two basic conditions at the same time, one is to have an iron core and the other is to have enough rotation speed. Venus lost enough rotation speed, so its magnetic field also became very weak, about one hundred thousandth of the Earth's magnetic field, which is a negligible magnetic field strength.
After the magnetic field disappears, the atmosphere on Venus begins to dissipate and escape. Without the atmosphere, the surface of Venus had to face the strong solar radiation. The strong solar radiation makes the original ocean on Venus evaporate rapidly, and the water molecules decompose to form hydrogen and oxygen, which escapes into the vastness of the universe.
The drying up of the primordial ocean changed the pressure balance in the crust of Venus, causing the crustal movements on Venus to begin to become frequent and violent, with earthquakes and volcanoes occurring constantly. Volcanic eruptions on Venus are very active, and there are currently more than 1600 large volcanoes and volcanic features that have been discovered by humans, the highest of which is in the Maxwell Mountains at over 10,000 meters. In addition, there are countless smaller volcanoes on Venus, and no one has counted their number, with estimates totaling more than 100,000, or even a million.
Volcanic eruptions from the ground to bring up huge amounts of carbon dioxide and concentrated sulfuric acid gas, because the number of gases produced by volcanic eruptions every day is greater than the number of escaping into the universe, so the accumulation of time, in the sky above Venus and formed a thick layer of atmosphere.
This newly formed atmosphere is made up of heavier molecules such as carbon dioxide and concentrated sulfuric acid, so it has a very high air pressure, about 92 times that of Earth, and can easily crush the rocks on the surface of Venus.
It is well known that carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas, and the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus reaches 96%, so the greenhouse effect over Venus is much more serious than that over Earth. Under the greenhouse effect, the temperature of the surface of Venus rises sharply, and its average temperature soon reaches 462 °C, making it the hottest planet in the solar system, hotter than Mercury, which is closest to the Sun. Without the greenhouse effect, the temperature on the surface of Venus would be very close to that of Earth.
Venus atmosphere and a layer of 20 to 30 km thick by the dense sulfuric acid composed of dense clouds. And the same as the Earth, Venus over the frequent occurrence of lightning and rain and other natural phenomena, but Venus over the rain are concentrated sulfuric acid rain. We all know the danger of acid rain, it will corrode buildings and industrial equipment, damage the leaves of crops, kill marine life, and cause direct harm to human beings. And the concentrated sulfuric acid rain on Venus is much more powerful than the acid rain on Earth. It can be imagined that on the surface of Venus, a rain of concentrated sulfuric acid down, any life will cease to exist.
Originally, humans had hoped that Venus would become a second "Earth" so that they could migrate to space when the planet became uninhabitable. However, scientists see only despair in Venus. Not only that, scientists realized that an inadvertent random event could bring about a butterfly effect that would turn a planet that was originally habitable for life into something else. From Venus, mankind seems to see the future of the Earth - a poor planet that has been "abandoned".
