Venus (Greek: Aphrodite; Babylonian: Ishtar) is the goddess of love and beauty. The planet probably received this name because it is the brightest of the planets known to the ancients. Most of the surface features on Venus are named for female figures.

The pressure of Venus' atmosphere at the surface is 90 atmospheres (about the same as the pressure at a depth of 1 km in Earth's oceans). It is composed mostly of carbon dioxide. There are several layers of clouds many kilometers thick composed of sulfuric acid. These clouds completely obscure our view of the surface.

The dense atmosphere produces a inescapable greenhouse effect that raises Venus' surface temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus' surface is actually hotter than Mercury's even though it's twice as far from the Sun.