4 VENUS THE HOTTEST PLANET Venus is one of the planets that orbit or travel around the sun in our solar system Venus is the second planet from the sun Its distance from the sun averages about 67 million miles 108 million kilometers Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system Like the planet Mercury Venus has no moon Venus is the bright est planet in the sky when viewed from Earth It is Venus can be seen in the night sky above Earth from the International Space Station
5 The solar system is made up of the sun and all of the planets moons asteroids and comets that travel around the sun VOCABULARY Earth’s nearest neighbor coming closer to Earth than any other planet Of all the planets in our solar system Venus is the most similar to Earth in size and other features This makes scientists think the two planets might have similar histories Today Earth and Venus are very different Scientists are hoping to someday find out why The Pioneer Venus Orbiter Pioneer 12 spacecraft took this photo of Venus in February 1979
6 Venus is about the same size and weight as Earth Its diameter or the distance through its center is about 7,521 miles 12,104 km Earth’s diam eter is 7,926 miles 12,756 km Venus is also similar in size to some of the other planets that have been found outside our solar system However it is small if you compare it Venus is similar in size to Earth as well as to at least two planets that are outside the solar system HOW BIG IS VENUS
7 COMPARE AND CONTRAST Venus and Earth are sometimes called twin planets or sister planets Compare how the two planets are similar and how they are different to the largest planet in the solar system which is Jupiter Jupiter has a diameter of 88,846 miles 142,984 km That is more than eleven times longer than Venus’s diameter In fact more than 1,300 planets the size of Venus would fit inside Jupiter Jupiter is so large that it has two and a half times more mass or amount of matter within it than all the other planets in the solar system put together This illustration shows just how small Venus is compared to the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn
