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50 free Venus trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Venus trivia quiz is about the planet, Earth's near-twin in size and its opposite in almost everything else. It covers the facts that make it strange: the hottest surface in the Solar System, crushing pressure 92 times ours, clouds of sulfuric acid, winds that lap the planet in four days, a day longer than its year, a Sun that rises in the west, no moons, no small craters and a surface only a few hundred million years old. It visits Ishtar and Aphrodite Terra, Maxwell Montes and the rule that names almost everything on Venus after women. The history and exploration questions follow the Greeks' two stars Phosphorus and Hesperus, Galileo's phases, Horrocks's transit, Cook's voyage to Tahiti, Lomonosov's atmosphere, Mariner 2, the Venera landers that survived minutes on the surface, the Vega balloons, Magellan's radar maps, Japan's Akatsuki, the phosphine debate and the missions still to come. A final group looks at the goddess and her Babylonian, Maya and Old English names, Friday, and the symbol that came to mean female. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on each question, so it works for a classroom, a pub quiz or a space enthusiast. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Planets and Solar System quizzes for more.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Where does Venus rank in distance from the Sun?
Second
It orbits between Mercury and Earth and comes closer to Earth than any other planet.
Q 02Which planet is the hottest in the Solar System?
Venus
Its runaway greenhouse effect keeps the surface at about 464 °C, hotter than Mercury despite being twice as far from the Sun.
Q 03Roughly what is the surface temperature of Venus?
About 464 °C
That is hot enough to melt lead, and it barely varies between the equator and the poles.
Q 04The atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus is roughly how many times Earth's at sea level?
92
That is like being nearly a kilometre under the ocean; the lowest air layer behaves as a supercritical fluid.
Q 05Venus's atmosphere is made almost entirely of which gas?
Carbon dioxide
About 96.5% CO2 and 3.5% nitrogen, with clouds of sulphuric acid on top.
Q 06The clouds that cover Venus are made of what?
Sulfuric acid
They reflect so much sunlight that Venus is the brightest natural point of light in our sky.
Q 07Venus rotates in the opposite direction to most planets. What is this called?
Retrograde rotation
Seen from its surface, if you could see through the clouds, the Sun would rise in the west.
Q 08On Venus, which is longer: its day or its year?
The day (243 vs 225 Earth days)
A sidereal day of 243 Earth days beats a year of 224.7 Earth days.
Q 09Which direction would the Sun appear to rise from the surface of Venus?
In the west
The retrograde spin flips sunrise, though the opaque clouds mean nobody on the surface could watch it.
Q 10Venus is often called Earth's 'twin' or 'sister' because of what?
Its similar size and mass
Its diameter is only about 640 km less than Earth's and its mass is 81.5% of Earth's.
Q 11How many natural moons does Venus have?
None
Cassini claimed to see a moon called Neith in the 17th century, but it was never real.
Q 12What name was given to the nonexistent moon of Venus that Cassini reported in the 17th century?
Neith
Sightings continued for two centuries; most were stars in the background.
Q 13What is it called when Venus's cloud-top winds circle the planet in four days, far faster than it spins?
Atmospheric super-rotation
The winds reach 300 km/h, about 60 times the speed of the surface below.
What is the name of the highest mountain range on Venus?
Q 21What is Venus's maximum apparent magnitude, making it brighter than any star or planet?
About −4.9
It is bright enough to see in daylight, and it is the most commonly misreported 'UFO'.
Q 22How often does Venus 'overtake' Earth, switching between Evening Star and Morning Star?
Every 584 days
That is its synodic period, about 1.6 years.
Q 23What did the ancient Greeks call Venus as morning star and evening star, thinking them two objects?
Phosphorus and Hesperus
Pliny credited Pythagoras with realising they were the same body.
Maxwell Montes
It rises about 11 km, higher than Everest, on the northern highland Ishtar Terra.
Q 15Venus's highest mountains, a rare feature not named for a woman, honour which physicist?
James Clerk Maxwell
Alpha, Beta and Ovda Regio are the other exceptions, all named before the IAU rules were set.
Q 16Most surface features on Venus are named after what?
Women, historical and mythological
Craters carry names like Cleopatra and Sacajawea; the two continents are Ishtar and Aphrodite.
Q 17The northern highland 'continent' of Venus, about the size of Australia, is named after which goddess?
Ishtar
The southern continent, Aphrodite Terra, is larger, roughly the size of South America.
Q 18How many volcanoes larger than 100 km across does Venus have?
167
Earth has just one volcanic complex that big, the Big Island of Hawaii.
Q 19Why does Venus have no impact craters smaller than about 3 km across?
Its thick atmosphere burns up small impactors
Anything under about 50 m across fragments and burns before reaching the ground.
Q 20How old is the surface of Venus estimated to be?
300 to 600 million years
Its few craters suggest the whole surface was resurfaced by volcanism relatively recently.
Q 24The Romans called the morning aspect of Venus by what name, literally 'Light-Bringer'?
Lucifer
The evening aspect was Vesper; both are direct translations of the Greek names.
Q 25Whose 1610 discovery that Venus shows phases helped demolish the Earth-centred model?
Galileo Galilei
A full set of phases is impossible if Venus circles the Earth rather than the Sun.
Q 26Who observed the first known transit of Venus in 1639, having predicted it himself?
Jeremiah Horrocks
He used it to estimate the size of the astronomical unit, the whole point of watching transits.
Q 27Captain Cook sailed to Tahiti in 1768 to record a transit of Venus. What did the voyage lead to?
The exploration of Australia's east coast
Only seven Venus transits have ever been observed.
Q 28When is the next transit of Venus?
December 2117
The last pair were in 2004 and 2012; they come in pairs eight years apart, then a gap of over a century.
Q 29Who discovered that Venus has an atmosphere, in 1761?
Mikhail Lomonosov
He noticed a glowing ring around the planet during a transit.
Q 30Which was the first successful interplanetary mission, flying past Venus in December 1962?
Mariner 2
The Soviet Venera 1 had tried a year earlier but lost contact on the way.