Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the 2nd largest terrestial planet after our Earth. Venus might be the second planet from our star but is much 40 degrees Celcius hotter than the first, Mercury. Its hostile atmosphere makes it the densest, most hottest planet in the Solar System. If a astronaut would ever land on Venus, he would be squashed, melted or poisoned by Carbon and Sulphur Dioxide. This is what actually happened to the first spaceprobes reaching Venus. The Veneras, a family of Russian spaceprobes was meant to study the planet, but most of the probes were burned at temperatures of 475-80°C (860 Farenheit). The few others, who survived landing on Venus, were shortly crushed by pressure and melted by acid and high temperatures.

Probes
The Venera probes were the first objects to reach the atmosphere or the surface of another world, but nearly none of them survived in the hostile and carbon atmosphere of Venus. The few probes which made it through the atmosphere, studied the ground and volcanic features, but were destroyed shortly after by crushing atmospheric pressure 100 times more stronger than Earth's.
 * Venera's (Russia) - (1961-84)

Future probes

 * BepiCombo (Europe/Japan) - (2014)
 * Venera-D (Russia) - (2016) (proposed)
 * SAGE (Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer) - (2016) (proposed)

Geology
Underneath its clouds, Venus is a world of plains, canyons and tall mountains. The tallest peak on Venus is Mount Maxwell, 11 km (7 miles) high, 3 km higher than Mount Everest, Earth's tallest mountain. Venus is dominated by two continents called Ishtar and Aprodite Terra. Venus is smaller than the Earth, but nearly the same size, 12,104 km in diameter. Earth has a diameter of 12,756 km.

Atmospheric vortex
In Venus' south pole, a huge, long-lived vortex exsists. It is actually two storms joined together and has been showing no signs of dissipation. From space it looks like one of the Earth's cyclonic and anticyclonic storms.