Firstly, the moon is about 250,000 miles from Earth. It orbits the earth, so it’s always around 250,000 miles away.
Venus, on the other hand, orbits the Sun. At it’s closest point, it’s around 26,000,000 miles from Earth, at it’s farthest point, it’s 162,000,000 miles from Earth.
Let’s have a closer look at Venus.
It’s an incredibly hostile place, with surface temperatures reaching 465°C.
The atmosphere is around 90 times the density of our atmosphere, and is around 96% carbon dioxide, the clouds in the sky are mostly made of sulfuric acid.
Between 1966 and 1983, Russia sent 13 Venera probes to Venus, with 10 landing on the surface.
Of the 10 probes that successfully landed, the longest any of the lasted before the atmosphere killed them, was two hours, with the shortest lived being 23 minutes.
The photograph above was taken in 1976, in the 53 minutes between the Venera 9 probe landing and its inevitable death…
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