READING FURTHER
Weather Watching on Other Planets Savvy travelers know to check the weather of their destination before packing for a trip. No one would want to be caught in only shorts and a T-shirt in freezing weather! If you were an astronaut traveling to another planet, what kind of weather would you prepare for? Very Hot Venus To have weather, a planet must have an atmosphere. Mercury doesn’t have an atmosphere and consequently doesn’t have any weather. Venus, however, does have an atmosphere that is thick and dense with clouds of sulfuric acid, and so it experiences very
Venus’s atmosphere traps energy and creates fiery temperatures. An artist drew what the weather might look like on this hot planet. In this drawing, lightning flashes out from thick, yellow, sulfuric acid clouds.
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Lesson 1
extreme weather. The clouds on Venus act like a blanket, trapping energy and causing temperatures to reach as high as 471ºC! If you could venture to Venus, and if you weren’t crushed first by the weight of its atmosphere, you would need a very insulated spacesuit to protect you from the heat.