Venus

Of all the planets in our Solar System, Venus is the one nearest to Earth and the brightest "star" in the night sky. It is very similar to Earth in some ways. The two are almost the same size, for example. But Venus is shrouded in such a thick layer of clouds that you cannot see its surface. Space probes and technology, such as radar, finally made it possible to learn what lay below the clouds. Underneath its shroud, Venus turned out to be quite different from Earth. Readers will learn about Venus's blistering heat and intense atmospheric pressure, its slow backward rotation, Mariner 2's and Magellan's observations of Venus, and the planet's volcanic activity.