
As romantic as all of the names and coincidences may sound it doesn’t change the fact that Venus is effectively a planet sized death trap. The atmospheric pressure on Venus is equivalent to 92 times that on earth which is the same as in the deep sea. This means that any humans on the surface would simply be squished and that is if the rest of it didn’t kill them first.


Despite this (and by the power of human stubbornness) various probes have actually been sent to Venus and several Russian landers actually landed on the planet (where each of them have been promptly destroyed). The most successful mission to date has been Venera 13 which managed to survive 2 hours on the surface of the planet, despite being designed to last 30 minutes) and has also sent back colour photographs of the surface of the planet.
This sister to Earth is fascinatingly deadly, and due to its unique atmosphere and composition, gives extremely interesting data for our scientists to study. However it is also a sharp reminded of how dangerous our solar system is, that even our own “sister planet” would kill us in only a matter of seconds.
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