Atmosphere of Venus

Venus's atmosphere

The atmosphere of Venus is the layer of gases that surrounds Venus. It is mainly composed of carbon dioxide. Its atmosphere is denser and hotter than the atmosphere of Earth. The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F). The pressure is 93 bar (9.3 MPa). It is composed of carbon dioxide (96.5 %), nitrogen (3.5 %), sulfur dioxide (150 ppm), argon (70 ppm), water vapor (20 ppm), carbon monoxide (17 ppm), helium (12 ppm), hydrogen chloride (0.1–0.6 ppm) and hydrogen fluoride (0.001–0.005 ppm).

Atmosphere Of Venus Media

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  Composition of the atmosphere of Venus. The chart on the right is an expanded view of the trace elements that all together do not even make up a tenth of a percent.

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  Comparison of Atmosphere Compositions – Venus, Mars, Earth (past and present).

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  1761 drawing by Mikhail Lomonosov in his work on the discovery of atmosphere of Venus

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  Composite image of the polar vortex of Venus in strong red (red image is an infrared view of hot high clouds and the grey image is an ultra-violet view of lower clouds)

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  Meridional (north-south) component of the atmospheric circulation in the atmosphere of Venus. Note that the meridional circulation is much lower than the zonal circulation, which transports heat between the day and night sides of the planet

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  False colour near-infrared (2.3 μm) image of the deep atmosphere of Venus obtained by Galileo, red areas are signatures of the hot surface radiating through the atmosphere relatively unhindered. The dark spots are clouds silhouetted against the very hot lower atmosphere emitting thermal infrared radiation.

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  Venus interacts with the solar wind. Components of the induced magnetosphere are shown.

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  Infrared image of the night-side of Venus, showing different layers of clouds at altitudes of 35 to 50 km in different colours. Red coloured clouds are the highest, green and blue are below. Carbon dioxide and monoxide areas are absorbing infrared signatures.

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  Photograph taken by the uncrewed Galileo space probe en route to Jupiter in 1990 during a Venus flyby. Smaller-scale cloud features have been emphasized and a bluish hue has been applied to show that it was taken through a violet filter.