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Myths and checks

Things people get slightly wrong

Which is the hottest planet in the solar system?

On the NASA fact sheet, how long is a solar day on Venus?

It is the hottest planet in our solar system — hotter, NASA Science notes, even than Mercury. [NASA Science] Its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead — about 872 °F (467 °C), according to NASA Science. [NASA Science]

The same fact sheet gives the average surface temperature as 737 K (464 °C). [NASA Fact Sheet] NASA Science puts the atmospheric pressure at the surface at about 93 times what it is at sea level on Earth. [NASA Science] The NASA fact sheet gives the surface pressure as 92 bars. [NASA Fact Sheet]

You will sometimes see 464 °C and 92 bars, and sometimes about 467 °C and about 93 times sea level. Both are NASA figures, from different pages. This site keeps them labelled.

NASA Science gives a sidereal day of 243 Earth days, longer than a Venus year of 225 Earth days. [NASA Science] The length of a solar day on Venus, on the fact sheet, is 2,802.0 hours, or 116.750 Earth days. [NASA Fact Sheet] Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction from most planets, so the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east. [NASA Science]

NASA Science gives Venus a very slight tilt of only three degrees, too little to produce noticeable seasons. [NASA Science] The obliquity of Venus to its orbit is 177.36 degrees. [NASA Fact Sheet]

A tilt of 177.36° on the fact sheet is the retrograde way of recording a small lean; NASA Science calls that lean about three degrees. They are not two different planets.

Venus is one of only two planets in our solar system that does not have a moon, and it has no rings. [NASA Science]

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