Atmosphere of Venus Atmosphere of Venus The atmosphere of Venus is the layer of gases surrounding Venus. It is composed primarily of carbon dioxide and is much denser and hotter than that of Earth. The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (9.3 MPa), roughly the pressure found underwater on Earth. The Venusian atmosphere supports opaque clouds made of sulfuric acid, making optical Earth-based and orbital observation of the surface impossible. Information about the topography has been obtained exclusively by radar imaging. Aside from carbon dioxide, the other main component is nitrogen. Other
History of Earth in the last 4.5 billion years. Many models indicate that the Earth would have been covered in ice. A likely solution is that there was enough carbon dioxide and methane to produce a greenhouse effect. The carbon dioxide would have been produced by volcanoes and the methane by early microbes. Another greenhouse gas, ammonia, would have been ejected by volcanos but quickly destroyed by ultraviolet radiation. One of the reasons for interest in the early atmosphere and ocean is that they form the conditions under which life first arose. There are many models, but little consensus, on how life emerged