Here's why:
* Venus's atmosphere is incredibly dense: It's about 90 times thicker than Earth's atmosphere.
* The surface pressure is crushing: It's about 92 times the pressure at sea level on Earth, equivalent to being about 900 meters (3,000 feet) underwater.
While other gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn have much larger atmospheres, their pressures are spread out over a greater volume. Venus's small size and thick atmosphere result in a tremendously high pressure at its surface.
