What causes Venus to have higher temperatures than mercury even though mercury is much closer to the sun?

Answer 1

The greenhouse effect. Venus's atmosphere is thick with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. They let the ultraviolet and some visible light in, which heats the surface. But the gases are opaque to infrared (heat) radiation so they act like a thermal blanket keeping the heat in.

Answer 2

ok, everybody's on the right track. lindajune is VERY right about Venus' temperature issues. HOWEVER. What everyone has failed to mention is that Mercury's temperatures fluctuate so drastically between it's day & night because Mercury has no atmosphere!! It's too close to the sun and has too weak of a gravitational force to keep the molecules of an atmosphere in orbit around it and not to be sucked into the sun. Yes! That's right! The sun has literally swallowed Mercury's atmosphere!!!!

*ahem* Sorry. I get a little excited about stuff like that.

Answer 3

Because Venus has something called the greenhouse effect,that means that the sun can come in and not leave . Kinda like a greenhouse. And considering that Venus is the second closest to the sun you could understand that it would be very very hot.

Answer 4

Venus has a thick atmosphere that traps heat and light from the Sun, Mercury has no atmosphere and so, the heat and light will not stay.

Answer 5

The atmosphere of Venus is very dense & consists mostly of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Venus also has a thick cloud cover which traps & holds heat.
Mercury has no atmosphere to speak of, so it has nothing to hold the heat.

Answer 6

The gases in it's atmosphere.

Answer 7

Read LindaJune's answer, I think she is correct.

Answer 8

greenhouse affect