Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It has the longest rotation period of 243 days of any planet in the Solar System and rotates in the opposite direction to most other planets meaning the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east. It does not have any natural satellites.
Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It is the second-brightest natural object in the night sky after the Moon, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows at night and rarely visible to the naked eye in broad daylight. Orbiting within Earth’s orbit, Venus is an inferior planet and never appears to venture far from the Sun
With a radius of 3,760 miles (6,052 kilometers), Venus is roughly the same size as Earth — just slightly smaller.
From an average distance of 67 million miles (108 million kilometers), Venus is 0.7 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. It takes sunlight 6 minutes to travel from the Sun to Venus.
When the solar system settled into its current layout about 4.5 billion years ago, Venus formed when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust together to form the second planet from the Sun. Like its fellow terrestrial planets, Venus has a central core, a rocky mantle and a solid crust.