In this passage the author talked a lot about the importanced of studying Venus. Their is a lot of similarities of Earth on Venus. By studying Venus we could learn things that could help prevent our earth from getting the same way that Venus is. What if Venus used to be home to life and was just like earth, but they did not take care of their planet and it ended getting too bad for life to survive? The author made a valid point to the reasons that we should study Venus.

Venus is often refered to as earths twin. When viewing venus from far away they can tell that it has a lot similar land forms as we have here on earth. " The planet has a surface of rocky sediment and includes familiar features such as valleys, mountains, and craters."

This statement shows that Venus is very similiar to us here on Earth.

Although Venus has a lot of similiar landmarks to earth, its climate is very different and is very dangerous to humans. Its atmoshphere is made up of 97 percent carbon dioxide. Their clouds are made up of highly corrosive sulfuric acids. On Venus's surface the temperature is 800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the atmoshpheric pressure is 90 times greater than we face on earth. These conditions make it impossible for a space shuttle to make it to Venus.

NASA is exploring ways that we can get space shuttles closer to Venus so that we can find out more about it. They have figured out that if the space shuttle floats above the hazardous conditions it will be about 30 miles from the surface of Venus. It would still be around 170 degrees fahrenheit, but the air pressure would be close to that of sea level on Earth. It still would not be easy conditions, but it would be survivable for humans.

Exploring Venus is very important to us here on Earth, although it poses many challenges the benefits and things that we could learn outweigh them. Venus could have been just like earth millions of years ago, but the planet was not taken care of. The things that we learn on Venus could be vital to the sucess of our planet and our future.