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Venus Is Super Toxic

Venus imaged in ultraviolet light by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995.
Venus imaged in ultraviolet light by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. Image: NASA/JPL

Remember that thick Venusian atmosphere, so thick that it may have sent the planet into a climatological tailspin? Well, there’s more. Besides being carbon dioxide-rich, the atmosphere on Venus is chock-full of sulfuric acid clouds (I wouldn’t open your eyes in them). The atmosphere is on the whole so thick that we can only image the planet’s surface using radar. The atmospheric pressure is also 95 times that of Earth’s, making it equivalent to the pressure a felt at about 3,300 feet underwater here. So if you don’t bake on arrival or asphyxiate in the noxious skies, you’ll be squashed. How divine!