Venus Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-11-05
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Venus is a rocky planet with a dense carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere and a hot surface. Its bright clouds make it highly reflective, but reflected sunlight and surface temperature answer different questions. A large greenhouse effect means that a high Bond albedo does not imply a cold surface.[ref]
The comparison with Earth is useful because similar planetary size does not guarantee similar atmospheric evolution. Radiative transfer, the volatile inventory and energy exchange with the surface influence the resulting atmospheric pressure-temperature profile. Clouds also prevent ordinary visible-light imaging from revealing the surface directly, making measurements at other wavelengths important for separating atmospheric appearance from solid-body structure.
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