Venus
Venus is the second planet orbiting the Sun in the Sol System. It orbits the sun in a retrograde manner at an average distance of .723 AUs. It has a year of 224.7 Earth days and a day lasting 243 Earth days. Due to it's dense atmosphere it has a mean surface temperature of 735 degrees Kelvin (863.33 degrees Farenheit, 461.85 degrees Celsius), the hottest surface temperature of any planet in the solar system. Venus has 92 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth.
Venus in Science Fiction
Like Mars, people in the first half of the twentieth century believed that Venus might be habitable and be home to various lifeforms before Soviet probes descended into the Venusian atmosphere. In particular, Venus was imagined by science fiction writers to be covered by tropical rainforest beneath it's cloud cover. While long term terraforming projects have been proposed, the planet's hostile environment presents considerable difficulties to colonization efforts.
- In Exosquad, Venus has been successfully terraformed
- Like with Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a lesser known series of novels set on a habitable Venus called Amtor.