Space picture of the day.

Exerpt: And it looks so pretty in the photographs...

Venus, the second planet from the Sun, bakes under twice as much solar radiation as Earth, often reaching temperatures of 895 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees Celsius). That, combined with the planet's sulfuric acid atmosphere and a human-crushing surface pressure 95 times greater than Earth's, makes it a lot less hospitable for humans than, say, Mars. Another uncomfortable Venusian feature is the thick cloud cover that, unlike Earth, rotates around Venus much faster than the planet itself -- about once every four days.