Venus is the brightest planet in the Solar System.
The brightest natural objects in the sky are (obviously) the Sun, which has a magnitude of -26.7, followed by the Moon, which has a magnitude of -12.7 at a typical full Moon. Third comes Venus, with a magnitude of around -4.5 at the two points in its orbit when it is brightest.
Venus is the brighter one, for three reasons. First, it's close to the Sun, as planets go, basking in sunlight twice as bright as we receive on Earth and about 50 times more intense than the sunlight that reaches distant Jupiter. Second, it's almost seven times closer to Earth.
Venus is the brightest planet of our solar system and Jupiter is the largest.
It's the hottest planet in our solar system, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. Surface temperatures on Venus are about 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius) – hot enough to melt lead. The surface is a rusty color and it's peppered with intensely crunched mountains and thousands of large volcanoes.
Named GJ 504b, the planet is made of pink gas. It's similar to Jupiter, a giant gas planet in our own solar system. But GJ 504b is four times more massive. At 460°F, it's the temperature of a hot oven, and it's the planet's intense heat that causes it to glow.
Other notable features of Sedna include its size and reddish color. After Mars, it is the second reddest object in the solar system.
Mars is known as the Red Planet because iron minerals in the Martian soil oxidize, or rust, causing the soil and atmosphere to look red.
Objects that reflect no sunlight are black. Consequently, HD 149026b might be the blackest known planet in the Universe, in addition to the hottest. The temperature of this dark and balmy planet was taken with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
Uranus holds the record for the coldest temperature ever measured in the Solar System: a very chilly -224℃. The temperature on Neptune is still very cold, of course – usually around -214℃ – but Uranus beats that. The reason why Uranus is so cold is nothing to do with its distance from the Sun.
It has been speculated that life on Venus may have come to Earth through lithopanspermia, via the ejection of icy bolides that facilitated the preservation of multicellular life on long interplanetary voyages. "Current models indicate that Venus may have been habitable.
Venus orbits one step inward from Earth. So we always see it near the sun in our sky, and, generally speaking, after sunrise it's hard to see. But Venus is up there, every day, following or leading in the path of the sun across our sky.
So where does that redness come from? Well, a lot of rocks on Mars are full of iron, and when they're exposed to the great outdoors, they 'oxidize' and turn reddish - the same way an old bike left out in the yard gets all rusty.
'Earth and Venus could be cousins'
Venus is a similar size as Earth and appears to have similar amounts of carbon, and in the past the sun was not as bright, meaning more moderate surface temperatures.
Venus, the third brightest object after the Sun and Moon, was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It's the only planet named after a female god.
Venus is bright (it has a high albedo) because it's blanketed by highly reflective clouds. The clouds in the atmosphere of Venus contain droplets of sulfuric acid, as well as acidic crystals suspended in a mixture of gases. Light bounces easily off the smooth surfaces of these spheres and crystals.
NASA has taken a closer look at 55 Cancri e, an exoplanet that earned the nickname "diamond planet" due to research that suggests it has a carbon-rich composition.
A purple planet! Actually, the color suggestion is just speculation based on the planet's expected chemical composition. The planet, called WASP-104b, orbits 4 million km from its yellow dwarf parent star every 1.75 days.
There is a lot of evidence for the planet – thought to be up to 20 times further out from the Sun than Neptune – but it may be impossible to see with current technology. The giant, hidden planet is thought to be 10 times larger than Earth and on an orbit that takes 10,000 or 20,000 years to go round the sun.
Neptune: The Blue Planet.
Three planets are smaller. It is the third-closest planet to the sun. Only Mercury and Venus are closer. Earth has been called the "Goldilocks planet." In the story "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," a little girl named Goldilocks liked everything just right.
Mercury may be seen as an evening "star" near where the sun has set, or as a morning "star" near where the sun will rise. The ancient Greeks called the evening star Hermes and the morning star Apollo, believing them to be different objects. The planet is named for Mercury, the Roman messenger of the gods.
The Angry Red Planet began as The Planet Mars, a treatment written by Sidney Pink about a space voyage to Earth's mysterious neighbor.
Astronomers have used a new technique to confirm a real-life Tatooine, the fictional planet with two suns that was home to Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars.” The planet, Kepler-16b, is about 245 light years from Earth, is a gas giant, and is roughly the size of Saturn.
This Is Why Mars Is Red And Dead While Earth Is Blue And Alive.