Venus (Venusian Haven)

A picture of Venus taken from planetary orbit.

A map showing the continents and oceans of Venus.

Venus is one of the planets in the Solar System as well as the nearest planet to Earth (making Venus the brightest star in the sky after the Sun and the Moon). Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun, completing an orbit roughly every 224.7 Earth days (with an average day on Venus being roughly 34.2 Earth hours). Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Venus has one moon named Neith, which is slightly bigger than the Earth's Moon and orbits Venus roughly every 18 Earth days.

Planet Venus is often nicknamed the "Sister Planet" or "Earth's Twin," due in part to its size, similar composition, and similar characteristics to the planet Earth. Venus is most noted for being the only known habitable world aside from the Earth, as well as the only known body to have extraterrestrial life. Venus is about two-thirds covered in oceans, while the rest is made up of continents and islands which vary between climate.

Venus has been known since antiquity (due to its brightness in the sky making it visible to the naked eye), while its moon has been well noted since the 17th century. The first man-made object to visit Venus was Mariner 2 in 1962, while the first man-made objects to land on Venus were the Venera 2 and Venera 3 (the later was the first to image the surface in detail). Valentina Tereshkova became the first human to set foot on Venus (as well as the first human to set foot on another planet), who helped pave the way towards human colonization of the planet. Today, the total human population on Venus is above two million people.