Venus
Originally named after the Roman goddess of love, the planet Venus also used to be known as the Morning Star and the Evening Star because it shines so brightly that it is visible on Earth even when the Sun is only partially visible in the morning and the evening.
Why does Venus shine so brightly? One reason is certainly because Venus is so close to Earth; it is, in fact, the closest planet to Earth. However, its proximity to Earth is not the only reason that Venus appears to shine so brightly. Another reason that Venus shines so brightly is that it is covered in thick white clouds that reflect sunlight off of them.
For quite some time, all that we have been able to see of Venus is the thick clouds that surround it, and little else was known of the planet itself. Dozens of space probes were sent to Venus in the last part of the twentieth century, and most of them were destroyed before they were able to send back information about Venus's surface. One probe, however, did manage to transmit some messages before it, too, failed.
From this one partially successful probe, numerous amazing facts about Venus have been learned. The thick clouds that cover Venus, for example, are made of sulfuric acid rather than oxygen, and these thick clouds never part to let any sunshine in at all. Most amazingly, the temperature on Venus is extremely hot, somewhere around 900 degrees Fahrenheit.