Our Created Solar System - Venus

Welcome to Venus, named for the Roman goddess of beauty, and the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon. Viewed from space, the planet would seem aptly named. The swirling cloud cover in soft tones indeed appears beautiful. However, we shall soon discover that Venus's beauty is only skin deep; this is a world of extremes. As the second planet from the sun, Venus has a relatively short year: orbiting the sun roughly every 225 Earth days. The planet's rotation, however, is the first of many strange things we'll discover. Venus rotates very slowly, completing one Venusian day roughly every 243 Earth days, meaning that on Venus, days last longer than years. Even more impressive, however, is that Venus rotates in retrograde (scientist speak for "backwards"). Assuming a person standing on Venus could see the sun through all that cloud cover, the sun would appear to rise in the west and set in the east. Venus has often been nicknamed in recent years, "Earth's Twin", because it is almost exactly the same size as the Earth, and equally rocky. This is as far as the comparison lasts, however.

The Venusian surface is a harsh, unwelcoming place. With an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide, Venusian air is poison to humans, not that you'd live long enough to die of carbon dioxide poisoning.

Very reminiscent of a "lake of burning sulfur"

With an average temperature of 900F (482C) Venus is hot enough to melt lead. Its crushing atmosphere exhibits the pressure of 92 bar, a pressure only found on Earth in the darkest depths of the oceans. In brief then, you would be crushed and melted before you would have the chance to breathe an unhealthy level of Venusian air. Even the Soviet probes that landed on Venus in the 1980s did not survive long, despite being designed to withstand the conditions. This is the closest place in the universe that we have ever found to a literal "Hell on Earth" (Hell on Venus?). The surface of this hellish place is mostly smooth, volcanic plains, though some mountains exist in scattered formations. A noticeable concentration of sulfur in the atmosphere indicates that volcanic activity is still prevalent. Venus is described as resembling a young Earth, in the early stages of planetary development. This is essentially what Earth, according to the Nebular Hypothesis, looked like billions of years ago. This, of course, presents a problem for Evolution. If Venus and Earth are "twins" that formed from swirling gas and dust 4.5 billion years ago... why does one appear its age while the other looks a few billion years younger? Also, why does Venus not have a magnetic field? It possesses a very slight field caused by the interaction of solar wind with the ionosphere, but does not generate a magnetic field of its own, despite the fact that such a geologically active planet is a prime candidate for a Dynamo Theory style magnetic field, and a powerful one at that.

More importantly, why does it rotate backwards? Remember, according to Evolution, the entire Solar System formed from swirling dust and gas orbiting in a prograde direction around the young Sun. It is impossible that Venus could have naturally formed in retrograde rotation.

Here I come to save the day!

Initially, the suggestion was gravitational braking on a significant tidal bulge. This, however, was disproved by the Soviet Venera missions and the American Mariner missions that mapped the planet and discovered it to be almost perfectly round. Did this stop the scientists from continuing with their hypothesis? Certainly not! As Spike Psarris phrased it, "Well, you see, Venus did form according to Evolution. But then, a long time ago... things happened." What things, you ask? Why, none other than the Large-Impact Hypothesis! That's right. An asteroid hit it!

There's just one problem with that idea, too. A collision of the size and force necessary to not only stop Venus's rotation, but cause it to rotate backwards, would have left some significant clues behind. Venus should have been knocked over onto its side and sent into an eccentric orbit. Imagine a spinning top, suddenly struck by something. That top is going to wobble and lose its balance, it will not spin smoothly.  Venus, however, is a wonderful spinning top. With an axial tilt of only 2 degrees, Venus does not experience solstices the way Earth does, and with the most circular orbit of any planet in the Solar System, Venusian seasons are virtually nonexistent. In fact, Venus exhibits absolutely no signs of having formed according to Evolution, only to have been thrown out of whack later. "Oh, but there is the fact that otherwise Venus would contradict Evolutionary Theory, so we know it's true!" says Spike Psarris, sarcastically. Rather, Venus looks very much like it has always been this way, a fact which causes Evolution no small amount of consternation, but fits quite perfectly with the idea of a recent Creation.

Once more, we are left in awe at the wonders we see in the universe. Venus is a truly unique world, beautiful from above, hell from below, a rebel among worlds, proudly defying everything that should make sense about itself. In the last 35 years we have learned much about this planet thanks to Russian and American missions, and new missions are being planned even now. There is still much to learn about our planet's rebellious "sister", many mysteries to be solved. But as we explore this world, let us do so with a proper attitude of awe and respect for the powers of the Creator, rather than stubbornly seeking a way to fit this world into a Creator-less narrative.

We hope you'll come back in two weeks as our journey comes home for a visit to the lovely, majestic planet known as Earth! There is much still to discover even about our own native world, and we look forward to sharing these wonders with you here at Fiat Lux!