Earth and Venus are almost twins in size, mass and gravity. Earth’s highest mountains are capped with frozen water; Venus’s may be coated in metallic frost containing lead and bismuth sulfides. Somehow, two remarkably similar planets took radically different paths—and scientists still don’t know exactly when or why.
If we put Earth and Venus side by side, the family resemblance is unusually close. Venus has about 95 percent of Earth’s diameter, 81.5 percent of its mass, and about 90 percent of Earth’s surface gravity. A 75-kilogram person on Earth would press down on the ground with about the same force as a 68-kilogram … Read more
