Venus

The second world from Sol, often named the Evening Star by Humans due to its position in Earth's sky.

Overview

With its nearby orbit and similar size, Venus has often been referred to as Earth's twin planet, and early astronomers imagined it as being a humid swamp world prior to the space age. This could not be further from the truth however, as both radio observations and probe visits revealed Venus to be a sweltering, hellish world blanketed by a dense cloud cover.

Unlike the other planets, Venus rotates clockwise, and has an extremely slow rotation of period of 243 days. This is also longer than its year, as it only takes 225 days to orbit the Sun.

Climate

Venus is very much notable for being the hottest planet in the Solar System, even more so than Mercury, thanks to the runaway greenhouse effect in its atmosphere which prevents heat from escaping. Temperatures on the surface reach a searing 475 *C (900 °F), enough to melt lead. Because of this, all probes that have landed on Venus have melted after some time.

Sulfuric acid rain is prevalent along with metallic snow, giving some unique weather. Rapid, scorching winds and volcanic eruptions are another commonality on the surface, which has resulted in locals naming the surface, Hell.

Above the cloud layer

Despite the hellish conditions of the surface, there exists a narrow zone above the cloud layer that exhibits condition not too dissimilar to Earth. It is for this reason that floating colonies have been put in place here. Locals often call this zone, Heaven, due to its stark contrast to the surface environment.

Observation and Exploration

Venera 13, the first probe to capture an image of the surface.

Venus has been observed for as long as Man has walked the Earth, earning the moniker of the "Evening Star" due to appearing around sunset. Many cultures viewed it as a divine figure associated with beauty and brightness. For example, Rome and Greece saw it as the goddess of beauty, whereas ancient Chinese, Korean and Japanese cultures associated it with the metal element.

When telescopes started to become more prevalent, the thick clouds of the planet were viewed in further detail, which made many hypothesise about it being a warm, lush jungle world beneath its cloudy exterior.

*Evening Star,* the first permanent space station around Venus, later converted into a broadcast and communications outpost.

It wasn't until the 1960s however that the planet's true nature was revealed when NASA's Mariner 2 probe visited the planet, and found out the planet's true nature. The first probe to land on the planet was the USSR's Venera 7 lander, which managed to transmit data for around 23 minutes before succumbing to the planet's hellish conditions.

Exploration continued well into the 21st-23rd centuries, with the first floating colonies springing up in the 25th-26th centuries.

Colonisation

*Belitudo,* a populous city known for its clubs and party scene, with two commercial airships travelling inbound.

As mentioned before, colonies exist in the form of large airborne cities within domes, with shuttle-planes and airships connecting most of them, allowing commercial travel for both locals and tourists. To combat the planet's slow rotation, the cities constantly move across the skies, to create a more conventional sense of day and night for colonists. Each move at the same speed, as to keep a consistent distance between as well as allowing transport between them to be more simple.

The first of these, Cloud 9, was established in 2446, with more springing up in the coming decades.

Communication across Venus is done via the Cytherean Net (C-Net for short), all managed by a swarm of satelites in orbit. The C-Net only covers Venus, so anyone wanting to communicate with Earth or Mercury will have to utilise an external service.

Population

As of today, there are around 1.2 billion people inhabiting the Venusian skies, with hundreds of floating colonies and mining platforms scattered amongst the clouds.

Culture

Venusians are obsessed with physical beauty, appropriate given their world's name, and thus both clothing and architecture is designed to look elegant. They have among some of the highest fashion senses all throughout Sol, with countless refined and experimental attire.

Education and innovation is a major factor as well, with the Cytherean University in Belitudo, being renowned across the Solar System for its academic sciences.