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Compared to Mercury, the Moon and other such bodies, Venus has very few craters. In part, this is because Venus's dense atmosphere burns up smaller meteorites before they hit the surface. The Venera and Magellan data agree: there are very few impact craters with a diameter less than 30 kilometres (19 mi), and data from Magellan show an absence ...
"Inferior planet" refers to Mercury and Venus, which are closer to the Sun than Earth is. "Superior planet" refers to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune (the latter two added later), which are further from the Sun than Earth is. The terms are sometimes used more generally; for example, Earth is an inferior planet relative to Mars.
Mercury and Venus, the closest planets to the Sun, similarly exhibit very slow rotation: Mercury is tidally locked into a 3:2 spin–orbit resonance (rotating three times for every two revolutions around the Sun), [84] and Venus's rotation may be in equilibrium between tidal forces slowing it down and atmospheric tides created by solar heating ...
The principal difference between the two planets is the lack of evidence for plate tectonics on Venus, possibly because its crust is too strong to subduct without water to make it less viscous. This results in reduced heat loss from the planet, preventing it from cooling and providing a likely explanation for its lack of an internally generated ...
Within the Solar System, the terrestrial planets accepted by the IAU are the inner planets closest to the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Among astronomers who use the geophysical definition of a planet, two or three planetary-mass satellites – Earth's Moon, Io, and sometimes Europa – may also be considered terrestrial planets.
Mercury is one of four terrestrial planets in the Solar System, which means it is a rocky body like Earth. It is the smallest planet in the Solar System, with an equatorial radius of 2,439.7 kilometres (1,516.0 mi). [4] Mercury is also smaller—albeit more massive—than the largest natural satellites in the Solar System, Ganymede and Titan.
On August 23, 2023, Venus retrograde and Mercury retrograde will join forces for a wild and crazy finale to summer. As you look at your calendar to lock in your last-minute summer plans, there are ...
That said, Venus and Earth still have the lowest gravitational potential difference between them than to any other planet, needing the lowest delta-v to transfer between them, than to any other planet from them. [12] [13] The distance between Venus and Mercury will become smaller over time primarily because of Mercury's increasing eccentricity.