The brightest of all planets, Venus, is also known as the Morning Star and the Evening Star. This planet is about the same size as Earth but is covered with impenetrable clouds of carbon dioxide and sulfur compounds. Radar mapping of the planet shows lots of craters and that 90% of the landforms are volcanic. Venus spins slowly retrograde (backwards west to east) in 243 days and takes about 225 days to orbit the sun. This makes the daytime about 115 days which can raise surface temperatures up to 464° C.
In about a month’s time our Moon appears to change shape called Phases. In 1610 Galileo observed phases and size changes of Venus similar to our natural satellite. His discovery of this and Jupiter’s moons led to a dramatic paradigm shift (way of thinking) from an Earth-centered system to a Sun-centered view. The world was no longer fixed in place and the gods no longer ruled.
