Toasty!

All of our Ripley’s Twists are now out as ibooks, including Twists Space.

Here’s a little more from Space, a look at the innermost planets of our solar system, Venus and Mercury.

Though farther from the Sun than Mercury, Venus is even hotter (about 860°F), because it is blanketed by a thick atmosphere. Without protection, you would die quickly, and not just from the heat: on Venus the air is deadly. Conditions on Venus are so extreme that no space probe that has managed to land there has survived for more than a few hours.

The reference to the space probes on Venus are about the Venera program by the Soviet Union. They launched a whole series of robotic probes to the planet in the 70s. With temperatures of 800°F, high pressures (about the same as standing under 30 feet of water) and acidic air, the probes only survived for 2 hours at most — and the first few only lasted as little as 23 minutes.

 

This page comes right out of Twists Space!

From black holes and supernovas to stars, planets and space travel, and much, much more! Astonishing facts and incredible photographs on every page…plus extraterrestrial tales of the weird and wonderful from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Discover All of Ripley’s Amazing Books at www.ripleybooks.com