Understanding Venus - Earth's Evil Twin

Thursday - May 11 2023, 17:05 UTC - 1 year ago

Earth and Venus are very similar in many ways, such as size, formation location and materials. However, the two planets have ended up wildly different due to Venus's thick carbon dioxide atmosphere causing a harsh, hot greenhouse effect. To understand the difference between the two, scientists have embarked on a decade-long mission to learn more about their respective evolutions and why Venus has earned the namesake of Earths evil twin.

Venus and Earth are sometimes called twins because they’re pretty much about the same size. Venus is almost as big as Earth. They also formed in the same inner part of the solar system.

Venus is in fact our closest neighbor to Earth. So they were formed in the same part of the solar system, made out of the same materials. They’re about the same size. So you would think that they would have turned out very, very similar.But what happened is somewhere along the way, they went two very different paths. Some people like to say Venus went bad or something went wrong. I like to say that somewhere along the way, something good happened on Earth.

But on Venus, what happened is its large, thick carbon dioxide atmosphere is driving a greenhouse effect. In fact, it’s so hot on Venus that you can melt lead. The temperatures on the surface of Venus are over 900 degrees Fahrenheit, and then Venus is covered in a 15-mile-thick layer of clouds. And those clouds are made of sulfuric acid. So it is a crazy place, but really interesting.

And we really want to understand why Venus and Earth turned out so differently. So NASA and ESA are embarking on a decade of Venus, where together we’re sending three missions where we’re all going to learn more about how Venus formed, how it evolved, and why it’s so different from Earth.

So that’s why sometimes she’s called our evil twin.