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Venus in twilightA dormant volcano climbs toward sulfurous clouds in the venusian twilight. In the foreground is a lava flow from a previous eruption. The long night ahead--120 Earth days long*--will offer no relief from the blast furnace temperatures as thick clouds contain the heat like a pressure cooker and high-altitude winds keep it distributed uniformly around the planet. * Venus rotates very slowly. One day-night cycle on Venus is 243 Earth days long, which is actually longer than the venusian year of 225 Earth days. |