Magellan has produced the most detailed maps of Venus by using radar. Though Venus and Earth appear to be alike in many ways, they are actually very different worlds. Venus' air is only 10 times less dense than water, as opposed to Earth's 1000 times less. There have been several spacecraft to land on the Venusian surface. Their instruments were only able to survive about an hour, but much data was collected.
Images show a rocky world with an orange glow from heavily filtered sunlight through the atmosphere.
Soviet landers tested the soil and all the rocks tested were basalts. This confirms the extensive volcanism. The planitiae are extremely flat and are comprable to lowland regions. There are only two major highland regions that rise above the lowland regions. They are called Ishtar Terra and Aphrodite Terra.