The Planets: "Venus, the Bringer of Peace," Part 3 (of 10)

My sisters and I may have been raised in the same home, by the same parents, but we've each turned out different from one another.

Like human sisters that grow into distinctive individuals, "sister planets" Earth and Venus are radically different. They are nearly the same size (Earth is the bigger of the two) and study indicates that, like Earth, Venus was once covered by liquid water. But, current research shows two celestial bodies with drastically disparate environments.

But before modern science exposed the truth about Venus's atmosphere and surface, the morning and evening star inspired humanity with its mysterious possibilities for millennia. The ancient Romans named the planet after their goddess of beauty, love, fertility, and femininity. Shukra, the planet's name in Sanskrit, means "'clear, pure' or 'brightness, clearness.'" "As one of the brightest objects in the sky," Venus impacted the cultures of ancient civilizations around the world.

More recently, science-fiction authors imagined Venus as a possible second home for humans. C. S. Lewis's tale of paradise preserved Perelandra envisioned Earth's sister planet as a lush waterworld.

It is interesting to note that the ancient Greeks' name for Venus's dawn appearance, Phosphoros, which means "bringer of light," was later translated into Latin as Lucifer, meaning "light bearer." Like the fallen angel that bears the same name, the real Venus is barren and incapable of supporting life.

Far from being the pure beauty the ancients imagined, the second planet from the Sun is stopglobalwarming.org's worst nightmare, come true. Venus is shrouded in a thick atmosphere that's about 96.5% carbon dioxide. Due to Venus's incredibly slow rotation rate(in Earth terms, it takes Venus approximately 243 times longer to complete a rotation), the planet's surface lacks a sufficient magnetic field to protect it against solar winds.

Some researchers suspect that this exposure to solar winds and ultraviolet radiations is responsible for stripping Venus of the water it once held; the same fate awaits any water deposited on the planet by comets. Surface temperatures measure at a balmy 800^oF. Makes these southern California heat waves look like winter in Michigan.

Like Mars, Venus exposes a sharp contrast between reality and imagination. With the Red Planet the contrast is between the hope with which we explore it and the malevolence we ascribe to it in fantasy. In Venus's case, the difference is between the planet's hellish, hostile environment and the attributes of beauty, purity, and love assigned to it in myth.

Intriguingly, where Venus fails our expectations, Christ, the Creator of the planets, endures. Venus is hostile, not peaceful, but the Bible describes Christ as "a prince of peace." Venus houses a hell-like world, not love, but Christ is love. Christ is the true "bright morning star."

Listen to "Venus, the Bringer of Peace" here.