Today we have the Moon and Venus taken on my Nikon D800 with my Tamron 150 – 600mm lens handheld in the back garden. It’s a 16.7% waxing crescent tonight, it’s nearly 4 days old (in it’s cycle round the earth – its believed to have been around for approximately 4.46 billion years old.) and is a mere 374,338km away (roughly 232603 miles). Venus, on the other hand is a mere 109.27 million km (67.9 million miles) away.
Venus, the second planet from the Sun, is often referred to as Earth’s “sister planet” due to its similar size and rocky composition. However, its environment is markedly different, characterized by extreme surface temperatures around 465°C (869°F), crushing atmospheric pressure approximately 90 times that of Earth, and clouds laden with sulfuric acid.
We (as in humans) have sent 44 spacecraft to visit Venus, with NASA’s Mariner 2 being the first in 1962. The Soviet Union’s Venera program achieved the first successful landings on Venus, providing invaluable data despite the landers’ brief operational periods due to the planet’s extreme conditions.
