Venus is a mysterious planet: it is perpetually shrouded in a thick atmosphere which is mainly composed of CO₂ and sulphuric acid. The high concentration of these gases cause the extremely high surface temperature of the planet: approximately 460°C at a pressure that is about 92 times of Earth’s atmopshere. The only images of the planet’s surface were made by the Venera probes, which only lasted a few hours due to the immense heat and pressure. The planet is fairly close to us at an average distance of 41.4 million km from Earth.

The thick atmosphere reflects a lot of light so it appears as a very bright star giving it the nicknames of ‘morning-star’ and ‘evening-star’. It also has a reputation of being mistaken for UFO’s due to its almost reflective shine.

The planet is easy to see in a telescope but offers little detail: only a bright surface is visible. The fun thing about Venus is that it has phases similar to our Moon. So every time you look at the planet you will see a slightly different shape as it goes from a “new” Venus to a “full” Venus.