Venus

Venus — planet, shown live in Cosmoscope, a real-time 3D map of the universe.

Earth’s evil twin: nearly the same size, wrapped in a crushing CO₂ atmosphere with sulfuric-acid clouds. It rotates backwards, so slowly that its day outlasts its year.

Radius
6,052 km
Mass
4.87 × 10²⁴ kg
Gravity
8.87 m/s²
Day (sidereal)
243 days, retrograde
Year
224.7 Earth days
Mean temp
464 °C
Moons
0
Semi-major axis
0.72 AU

Seeing Venus in real time

Cosmoscope puts Venus at its true position in the solar system, computed from JPL-derived ephemeris and updated continuously. Open the live 3D view to see, in real time, how far Venus is from the Sun and from Earth right now, how many minutes or hours light takes to cross that gap, and how fast it is moving along its orbit. Scrub the timeline to place Venus where it was on any past date, or where it will be years from now.

Interactive universe A living map of the solar system
Interactive universe
Waking the solar system…