Hell's Twin: A Guide to (trying to) Survive a Day on Venus

Look no further. Venus should be your day trip of choice.

Of course, visiting a new planet is always a little intimidating — especially when that planet is (basically) on fire.

However, you shouldn't stress. In this handy guide, we cover everything you need to know about visiting (and surviving) a day trip to Venus.

Understand your travel options

When traveling to Venus, you must plan your departure date carefully. At its closest, Venus is some 24 million miles (38 million km) from Earth. At its farthest, it's a staggering 162 million miles (261 million km) away. For comparison, Earth is just 25,000 miles (40,000 km) in circumference at the equator.

What does all this mean?

If you leave when Venus is at its closest and drive continuously at 60 mph (97 km/h), it will take you just under 50 years to get there. If you want to be precise, it will take about 45.6 years. But plan poorly and leave when Venus is farthest from Earth, and you’ll be in the car for over 308 years — and very much dead lon before you arrive.

Want to get there in a more reasonable timeframe? You should consider flying. 

If you select this form of travel, you can hop aboard a spacecraft created by NASA or Rocket Lab, and your voyage time will be reduced to just about four or five months. 

Still not fast enough for you? 

Then it would be best if you waited for humanity to develop a spacecraft that can travel at the speed of light. If you opt for this choice, your trip will take between two and 14 minutes, depending on when you leave. But please take note: You may need to wait hundreds of years for humans to create such technologies — and that’s assuming they can actually be built.

What to expect when you arrive 

As you approach Venus, you’ll notice just how similar the planet is to Earth. Scientists have long theorized that both Venus and Earth formed out of the same planetary ingredients, and the planets are also remarkably similar in size, mass, and density.

Just how similar are they? 

- Diameter: Venus = 7,500 miles (12,100 km) | Earth = 7,900 miles (12,700 km)

- Weight: Venus = 4.8 quadrillion kg | Earth = 5.9 quadrillion kg

- Density: Venus = 5.2 g/cm3 | Earth = 5.5 g/cm3

Unfortunately, the similarities between the planets end there. Alas.

As your transport vessel drifts down to Venus, you’ll see an endless expanse of volcanoes stretching across the broiling surface. So far, researchers have cataloged more than 85,000. For comparison, there are only about 1,350 potentially active volcanoes on Earth.

You will also be greeted by towering mountains that dwarf anything that can be found on Earth. The highest peak is Skadi Mons, which looms more than 6.8 miles (11 km) above the flat plateau below. 

Planning to try and summit Skadi Mons? Everest is 1.3 miles (2 km) shorter, and it still takes climbers two months to reach the top. But since a Venusian day is 243 Earth days long (about eight Earth months), you should have plenty of time to summit Skadi Mons in one Venusian day.  

Here are some of the other weird things about a day on Venus that you should be prepared for upon your arrival:

• Daytime and nighttime will each last a little over 120 Earth days. 
• Compared to most other planets in our solar system, Venus rotates backward on its axis. As a result, the Sun rises in the West and sets in the East (the opposite of what we see on Earth).

What to pack for a day on Venus

Venus’ surface is hot enough to melt lead. With temperatures that reach as high as 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius), this inferno-like world is twice as hot as your standard oven. In fact, it’s the hottest planet in our solar system, so you’ll need to pack a spacesuit that can withstand extreme heat. 

Consider making your spacesuit out of steel. Or, if you have extra money to spare and can afford something with a higher strength-to-weight ratio and better elasticity, titanium might be your material of choice. 

Of course, you’ll also want to put multi-layer insulation (MLI) on the inside of your suit, or you’ll quite literally be baked alive. Mylar or Kapton separated by low-conductivity materials (like dacron or fiberglass) should suffice.

And unfortunately, this is just the beginning of the upgrades you’ll need.  

Venus also has a remarkably dense atmosphere. It's 90 times thicker than Earth’s. The Venusian atmosphere is so heavy that pressure on the planet's surface is about the same pressure you’d experience 3,300 feet (1,006 meters) deep in Earth’s ocean.

Sooooo, you might get a bit crushed to death.

If that’s not enough, Venus also has thick, yellowish clouds made of skin-melting sulfuric acid (yes, the clouds will literally burn holes through your flesh). Oh, and the hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere make the planet smell terribly similar to rotten eggs. 

To avoid simultaneously being crushed to death, having your skin melted, and enduring the harsh smell, you’ll want to pack a spacesuit with an extremely thick, pressurized outer shell.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the technological capabilities to make a spacesuit that can withstand Venus’ harsh environment for very long. The acid would burn through your suit, or your protective outer shell would eventually succumb to the intense pressure. In fact, we’ve only managed to keep a spacecraft alive on the planet for just two hours — a record set by the Soviet Union's Venera 13 probe. 

But that was way back in 1982, and technology had advanced quite a bit since then. NASA has been working on a Venus lander called the Long-Lived In situ Solar System Explorer (LLISSE), and it may be able to survive on Venus for up to 60 days.

So, maybe there is some hope for you (but probably not).

What to see in your (very brief) time on Venus

We’ve already mentioned Skadi Mons, the highest mountain on the planet. Here are some other top sites you’ll want to see during your stay.

Idunn Mons

Idunn Mons is a volcanic behemoth named after the Norse goddess of rejuvenation. It was last active fairly recently and may well be a full-blown active volcano when you arrive. So, for those of you who’d like to up the heat a little bit, pay a visit to an alien volcano and bear witness to an ancient force that shaped a world beyond our own.

‍Pancake Domes

‍If you find yourself near the equator on the edge of the Eistla Regio, be sure to check out the “pancake” domes. Look for flat tops and steep sides up to 38 miles (62 km) wide. Venus also has what are called “Tick” domes located northeast of Alpha Regio. They are, without a doubt, some of the oddest volcanoes you’ll see. Look at their radiating spurs from above, and you’ll quickly realize why these features were named after the Earthly blood feeders.

Artemis Corona

Geology lovers visiting Venus are sure to fall in love with exceptionally complex structures called “coronae.”  Researchers believe mantle plumes cause the crust to bulge, crack, and and collapse, forming lava flows at the edges. Over time, that solidifies, and voila! You have a corona. But if you’re going to see a corona, you might as well see the biggest one: Artemis Corona. It spans a diameter of  1,300 miles (2,100 km), meaning it could swallow a little under half the United States.

The Dali and Diana Chasma

For those of you who like to go to one place and see a little bit of everything, the Dali and Diana Chasma system is the place for you. The system, which extends for 4,588 miles (7,400 km), is home to an array of distinct features. It has some of the deepest trenches, the highest highlands, and enormous volcanoes at Atla Regio. It’s a testament to Venus’ rather complicated geology.

Yeah, so. Basically all there is to see on Venus is volcanoes...

Venus wasn’t always like this

Looking around Venus now, it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t always a toxic wasteland. A long, long time ago — about two and a half billion years ago, to be exact — scientists think that Venus looked a lot like Earth. It may have been covered in oceans and even hosted alien life.

Back then, our Sun was a completely different kind of beast. It was a lot smaller and dimmer. As such, Venus was firmly planted in the so-called “habitable zone,” which is the region surrounding a star that can support liquid water and (perhaps) life on a planet's surface. 

But as time passed and our star began to age, it grew significantly brighter and hotter. The habitable zone moved outward, and Venus approached the inner edge of the zone. That’s when things began to spiral out of control.

Temperatures rose, and the oceans began to evaporate, releasing copious amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere. The water vapor, in turn, trapped heat and increased surface temperatures even more, causing more of the oceans to evaporate. 

Once the oceans evaporated, there was nothing keeping the tectonic plates lubricated and flexible. And so scientists think that plate activity was brought to a halt, which meant that carbon was slowly outgassed from the dirt or dumped out in massive volcanic eruptions. Over time, as the water vapor got hit by enough sunlight to release hydrogen atoms, all that mass was soon replaced by carbon dioxide rising up out of the surface and into the atmosphere.

And just like that, Venus became the (nearly unsurvivable) inferno-like world it is today.