OUTER SPACE

venus

Remember when I said that Mercury was the closest resemblance of hell somebody could ever look for? Well, I was wrong. Venus actually takes the spot now that I'm approaching its thick and hellish atmosphere. I'm still amazed by the fact that this spacecraft can stand such heat without any damage, and that this suit will let me walk on its surface. You know, considering that mythology depicts Venus as the goddess of love and beauty, you'd expect a totally different planet; seeing flowing incandescent lava lakes and a yellowish and fragmented atmosphere was kind of shocking.

You might be wondering why stars aren't visible in these pictures. I don't know either, I thought they'd be visible too. I should also mention that this picture was taken with a filter on the camera to see through the first layer of the atmosphere, which is of a calming white like no other. This planet looks like a person good on the outside but evil on the inside, for how deceiving it might seem at first glance. Realistically speaking, every person has layers, just like Venus, and most people have a bad side in them either way, so I don't really know if the comparison stands. Maybe it would be righter to say that Venus is just the perfect depiction of humans, which is kind of ironic if you consider how hellish it looks on the inside.

This is the "calming white like no other" I was talking about earlier.

Again, the spacecraft opens and I take the first step on Venus. My feet were hurting, although the boots were meant to protect me from any kind of physical damage. Maybe not even scientists could predict how blazing the surface might have been. However, do not worry; it was a bearable kind of hurt, nothing too severe, and my curiosity surely wouldn't have let me stop there. The soothing sound of vacuum wasn't guiding me through this trip, but it was the unceasing rough winds that, in a way, I still found cozy. It amazed me how weird those winds behaved; if I had to take a guess, I'd say that the thick atmosphere was the cause of this weird nature.

There are plenty of volcanos, some so high that I wonder if they'd be higher than Mount Everest, many flowing lava lakes as I mentioned earlier, and some craters. These weren't as large or frequent as Mercury's, but they were still beautiful in a way. The gravity felt different from Earth, but by a planet such a this you'd expect it to be heavier, but it wasn't as I thought it'd be; it actually felt a little lighter. It wasn't as light to let me fly around it, but I still felt the difference. Earlier I stated that I found the sound of the winds soothing in a way. I was wrong. I have a terrible headache now.

Walking through this hellish and damaged planet, I wondered how a place like this could exist within our solar system. Trust me when I say that if I told you to imagine hell and describe it to me, in my eyes you'd just be describing Venus. It looks like when in the Divine Comedy, Dante goes to the second circle of hell where Paolo and Francesca are located; the harsh and blazing winds, the elevated temperature, the passion and burning love between Paolo and Francesca, which matches with the mythology of Venus being the goddess of love and beauty, the color of the atmosphere and the volcanic activity are just analogue with Venus.

You'd also expect it to have ashes all around the surface flying around, but I was surprised when I saw that there was none. It was just fluid lava. This surely explains why Venus is the second brightest object in the night-sky after the Moon.

I'm sorry for the low quality pictures. I think the high temperature might have melted something in my camera.

I tried looking up but the sky wasn't visible. The atmosphere is so dense that all I can see is orange, yellow, red, and somehow green. I was very disappointed considering that I wanted to look at the Earth from here; in my opinion, it would have been kind of ironic seeing what I wrote earlier about Venus being hell. Actually, it's even more ironic, for the reason being that in hell you're underground and can't see the Earth, and here it looks like you're underground due to the extremely thick atmosphere. Furthermore, I again take back what I said earlier about the sound again. It's very soothing after you get used to it.

I also tried getting closer to a volcano and climbing over it, but I was too scared and let go. It fascinated me, but I didn't think I was able to do it.

After hours exploring and taking some samples back to the spacecraft, it was time to go. The next destination would have been Earth, but of course I won't be going there. My next destination will be the Moon, and I hope I'll be able to fix my camera before I go there, because the heat really messed up everything here. Before going, here's the last picture I took of Venus. I don't regret going to a place as peculiar as this, but I don't think I'll be back any time soon.