WEBVTT - How Venus Works 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.440 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:15.960 Clark and there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:20.360 Jerry's lurking in the background like a total creep, which 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.599 is super appropriate for Jerry. And this is stuff you 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.080 should know. Have you been singing the song all day? 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.920 Venus as a boy? How can you not sing that song? 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:33.440 I don't know. I mean, I guess you could be 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:38.920 singing that um shocking blue song Venus that Banana Rama covered. 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.599 Oh no, that's the one that I was talking about. Oh, 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:44.559 I was talking about the b York song Venus as 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:46.880 a boy. Oh no, no, no, sorry, I was thinking 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.639 of It's a good one. I'm mel Venus actually funny enough, Like, honestly, 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:53.519 that had not popped into my head and now I 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.520 won't be able to get it out. So thanks a lot. 0:00:55.680 --> 0:01:00.200 I thought of you yesterday. I was someone some don't 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:01.360 even know who it was. It was just one of 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.360 those Facebook posts that comes into your feed said. All 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.240 it said was now the final countdown by Europe is 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:13.320 in your head. That's all it was like, is that? Josh, Wow, 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.800 that's amazing that's the catchiest song of all time. It 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:21.360 was pretty funny. That's great. So, um, chuck, we're doing Venus. 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.640 And I was like skimming the House of Work site 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.400 looking for articles and I started to see I saw 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.480 this one article about how Venus is um starting to 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:34.360 get some love again from the space agencies, and um, 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.320 how little we actually know about it. And so I 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:38.360 was like this, you know, we've never done one on Venus. 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.440 We don't usually do planet yet. Maybe we should eventually 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.520 do all the planets over time. Um, but this is 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:46.280 a pretty good place to start. Because the more I 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.640 dug into Venus, the more I was like, this is 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:54.200 one of the most interesting planets of all time. Actually, yeah, like, uh, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.560 you know it's described in this article that you put 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.960 together as a hell escape, and when you start reading 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.920 get to it, it's like, wow, you will melt and 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.480 boil if you get near it, or be destroyed. You 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:08.639 won't even get near it because the sulphuric acid in 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.040 the clouds will destroy you, yeah, and your teeth. Yeah. 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.160 So it's like, yeah, not not a hospitable place, but 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.560 possibly once was, yeah, which makes the whole thing even 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.880 more compelling. It wasn't always like this, you know. Um, 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.239 it's like the mom and what's eating Gilbert grape when 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.880 she sees um is it? Juliette Lewis and says I 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.480 wasn't always like this? And Juliet Lewis says, I wasn't 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.400 always like this. It's just like that it is, basically, 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.240 except on a planetary scale. Yeah, And I think the 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:41.240 cool thing about Venus to which we can put a 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.160 pin in this but um, we're starting to gain more 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.560 interest in Venus now because it could offer a peak 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.200 into our own bleak future as a planet. Yes, just 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.880 like you said, put a pin in that and smoke 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.200 it in your hat. Um. So it's weird that Venus 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.799 is this hellscape now that we understand it, because it's 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.919 a it's a very ancient planet as far as human 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.960 consciousness of it goes, because it is so bright. It's 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.160 actually the third brightest object in the sky after the 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.840 Sun and the moon, thanks comes Venus. Um. So like 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:14.720 humans have been able to see it long before we 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.240 had anything like telescopes or anything like that. And in fact, 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.040 as far back as I think sixteen sixty BC or 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:26.120 the six hundred BC, um, the Babylonians were tracking it, 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.720 and they called the Ishtar after the goddess of love 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:32.799 and war after the movie. And then yeah, then they 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:37.200 would say it Ishtar black, and then some would go, hey, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.240 it's not as bad as everyone says, that's right, and 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.080 then that person would get shouted down, and then the 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.520 whole cycle would start over again. Yeah, it went by 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:48.240 quite a few different names. It was Ishtar, uh they 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:50.920 you know, before the Hellenistic Greeks came along, they thought 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.960 it was actually two different stars, so it was known 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.279 as both Vesper the evening star, and Lucifer or Phosphorus 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:03.320 the morning star. That's right. And then eventually Pythagoras said, 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.280 it's just one star everyone, and can we settle on 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.040 a name? And the Hellenstic Greek said, how about Aphrodite, 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:12.840 And then of course the Romans came along said no, 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.279 we call it Venus. That's right, and that's where we've 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.080 settled because the the Western world is modeled on the 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:23.599 Roman world. I guess. But Venus, the idea that it 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.440 is this feminine planet, that it has to do with 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.800 love and beauty, Uh, it really isn't start contrast to 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.640 how we understand it today. Since we we did start 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.600 really exploring it in the nineteen sixties. But even still, 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:39.839 if you if you look at um some of the 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.600 details of Venus that have been named by people. Apparently 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.800 almost all of the features on Venus are named after women, 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.960 Like there's a crater named after Chicago Way, there's a 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.960 canyon named after Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:58.279 so it's it's all about feminine beauty. But it's also 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.960 like this crazy health gape that will make your teeth 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:02.920 fall out and burn you alive. So it's a real 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.400 paradox in terms, you know what I mean totally. Uh. 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:10.240 It is the second planet from the sun um, which 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.359 is makes Venus our little neighbor, and which also means 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.080 that if Venus is getting sunlight, it's getting that light 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.920 a couple of minutes before we do. Uh. It is terrestrial, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.800 so it's made of rocks and solid things as opposed 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:27.120 to being like a gas planet like Jupiter and Saturn. 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:29.880 And there's also a boundary between the surface of the 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.360 planet in the atmosphere, so you know, it is like 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.719 Earth in some ways, but also not like Earth in 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.599 a whole lot of ways. Well it, I mean, it 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.159 is often called Earth's twin and then sometimes Earth's toxic twin. 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:48.240 I think that's an Aerosmith reference. But um, because it 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.240 is closer to the Sun than we are, it's one 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:55.880 one planet in it's orbit actually is between us and 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.440 the Sun. It falls within our orbit around the Sun, 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.839 which means that to us here on Earth, Venus seems 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.680 to have phases like the Moon does, which is pretty cool. Yeah, 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:11.400 I think Galilee figure that out in sixteen ten Galileo. Yeah, Oh, 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.200 you're on a first name basis. Yeah, and I go 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.640 away back. I can veil him out of jail once. 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.200 He's just call him Galley, yeah, the gal or Gigi. 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.159 Uh so. Yeah, when Venus is on the opposite side 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.160 of the Sun, it's in full phase, and then it's 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.479 looks like it's in the new phase when it's between 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.560 the Earth and the Sun. Yeah, and every once in 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.440 a while, our alignment with Venus and the Sun is 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.679 like a perfect line. And it just happened in two twelve, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.680 and I don't think I bothered to look, because I 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.640 don't remember looking. But the next time it's gonna happen 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:48.240 is seen. And unless aging researchers really have some sort 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.320 of breakthrough, I'm not gonna be around to see that 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:52.159 you didn't look, and you call yourself a friend of 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.080 Gali of Gigi. Yeah, I know you would be so disappointed. 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.240 It'd be is so disappointed into me. Come on, the 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:03.719 jos just look into the sky, right, Uh? So, Venus 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.599 is they call it the Earth's twin for the similarities, 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.400 um and not the differences obviously, even though like you said, 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.320 it's an evil twin. It's about about the same size. 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.960 It has about of our mass, but is almost a 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:23.200 perfect sphere because it is a slow roller. The Earth spins, obviously, 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.400 everyone knows, very quickly, revolving once every day every twenty 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.000 almost every twenty four hours, exactly twenty hours and fifty 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:35.200 six minutes, which means of course that that centrifical centrifugal 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.200 motion is going to bulge the equator. So we're technically 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:43.680 an ellipsoid in shape. But Venus spins the very very 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:48.240 slowly once every two dred and forty three days earth days. 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.280 That is, it spends on its axis. It's the slowest 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.600 spinner in our solar system and a really kind of 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.520 perfect little sphere because of that. Yeah, it doesn't produce 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:02.960 that bulge because it's so unsightly. And also because of 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:07.480 that same slow spin, it has an iron core and 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.920 molten mantle a lot like Earth does UM and through 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:17.080 that that that's that rocky core, that metallic core UM. 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:21.400 Earth's magnetic field is produced. But it's also produced because 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.520 it's spin so fast. Well, even though it has the 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.760 same kind of core and mantle that the Earth does, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.360 Venus spin so slowly, it can't produce a magnetic field, 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.040 at least one that's not very strong. UM. I think 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:37.600 venus Is magnetic field is fift ten thousands of a 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:43.440 percent the strength of Earth's magnetic field. Nothing like you 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:45.240 try to use a magnet up there, it's just gonna 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.520 it'll just melt in your hand, You dummy, don't even 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.160 try it, and you're dead anyway. Yeah, exactly. Uh. There's 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:56.120 some pretty cool theories about some interesting aspects of Venus. UM. 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.599 One is, and this is in a theory. It is 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.160 a fact Venus has no moon. But one of the 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:05.720 theories is that Earth's moon used to orbit Venus, but 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.160 our gravity was so strong we just came in and 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.360 said that's ours. Now, we'll be taking that moon. I know, 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.320 imagine seeing that moon approach out of nowhere to would 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.120 be like melancholy. You know, Oh my god, that movie. 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.320 I love that movie to just see recently, uh not 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:25.320 too recently. I mean I loved it too. I'm glad 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.439 you didn't say I enjoyed it, because that's the movie enjoyed, 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.160 right exactly. I read this article once it called it 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.440 was um I think it was titled like Lars von 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:42.160 Trier is campy, and they were basically like everybody's taking 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.040 Lars von Trier incorrectly, like this is all He's like 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.400 a huge joke, sir, Like this is all in jest. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.679 And once since I read that, I was like, I 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.959 really started to appreciate his stuff a lot differently. Yeah, 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.880 I mean those are a lot of his films are 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.640 tough to get through. Yeah, Dad, what you what a 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.520 part that is once you realize that it's like a joke, 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.160 or at least as far as large von Trier is concerned, 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.199 it's a joke, like it definitely, it's just easier to 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:11.880 take and watch and it's actually kind of funny and something. 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:13.640 But is that true or were they just sort of 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.120 I don't I don't know that they They had him 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.800 quoted as saying like, yeah, you got me, but they 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.400 made such a strong case that it's tough to tough 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.520 to not see it that way. I'll see if I 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:27.280 can dig it up and send it to you. Yeah, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.920 that sounds really interesting. Alright, so no moon. Earth perhaps 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.640 took the moon. Another really interesting thing that has sprung 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:40.480 a few different theories is that the backwards spin of 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.560 Venus relative to Earth. And this is interesting and that 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.640 some scientists say, yeah, it's backwards because it used to 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.000 spend relative to us the same then it slowed down 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.400 and stopped and started spending the other way. And we 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.840 can tell this because it's slowing down again. They measured 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:02.560 it sixteen years apart, and at the end of that 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.880 run it spuns six point five minutes slower, which is 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.360 a lot considering the Earth's rotation slows only by about 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.120 one point eight milliseconds every hundred years. So that's the 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:17.880 one theory. Others said it's not and never did quote 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.480 unquote spin backwards. It just got knocked a d and 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.560 eighty degrees on its axis. So it looks backwards. Yeah, 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.480 like the planet got flipped upside down somehow, and so 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:29.440 to us it looks like it's spinning backwards, but it's 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.120 spinning the same way it always has, And they're like, well, 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:36.000 how would the planet get knocked upside down? Obvious idea 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.320 is a planetoid or a meteor or something like that 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:41.439 striking it in just the right spot, which is the 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.680 right force that it flipped the planet upside down. Another 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.360 one is that the um that Venus's atmosphere so thick. 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:54.199 How thick is it? It's so thick it's possible the 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:59.880 Sun can create gravitational tides like tides in this atmosphere, 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.959 and that these tides started slashing back and forth at 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.600 some point and got so um forceful and strong that 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.440 they eventually flipped the planet over. I think this is 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:12.839 a really good start. How do you feel? I think 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.360 it's pretty great actually, And I have one more fact 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.040 I want to give out chuck um about the the 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:22.560 day relative to the year. So you know how the 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.720 day of Venus is two d forty three earth days. Yeah, 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.720 this one's a little bit of a head twister. Well, 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.000 it turns out that Venus orbits the Sun in two 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.600 hundred and twenty five earth days, which means that the 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.880 Venusian day is longer than the Venusian year. Which is 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:44.720 a pretty amazing fact in and of itself. Because Venus 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:49.000 spins backward relative to the direction it orbits the sun 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.760 sunrise to like a day night cycle from sunrise to 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.440 sunrise is actually only a hundred and seventeen earth days 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.199 because the sun kind of catches up with vn Us 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.240 in its spin, So it's not a two dtree three 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:07.400 days stretch between sunrise. It's actually a hundred and seventeen. 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.800 So there's three big numbers you need to remember for 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.280 Venus day night cycles. A hundred and seventeen days, the 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.160 year is two D five days, but the day is 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.040 two hundred forty three days, all relative to us, of course. 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.800 Well yeah, I mean what else counts nothing? So a 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:26.400 minute ago and I said, I think we're off to 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.640 a good start. I was kind of lying something felt missing. 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.320 But now we're really off to a good start. I 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:34.920 think so too. So we'll take a break and we'll 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:39.000 talk a little bit about the surface of this weird healthscape. 0:13:39.160 --> 0:14:13.720 Right after this all right, surface of Venus A lot 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.360 of clues because you know, we're we're still trying to 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.880 figure out Venus, and like you said, it's getting more 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.360 interesting to us more recently, which is kind of cool. 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.200 But there are clues kind of everywhere. The surface of 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.000 Venus is one clue that maybe something pretty big did happen, 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.880 and it's sort of recent past because Venus is about 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.880 the same age as Earth is um somewhere in the 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.440 neighborhood of four point eight billion years old, And they 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.240 look at impact craters to sort of gauge how old 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.040 a planet might be, like how many things have hit 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.280 it over time, because they know about how often that 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.240 might happen, and you know, these are good rough estimates. 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.960 But when you look at Venus, the crust of Venus 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:59.120 basically looks like it's only a few hundred million years old, 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.760 so like maybe up to eight hundred million, maybe as 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.440 little as a hundred and eighty million years old. So 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.400 that is a big clue that like, yeah, something happened 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.840 to kind of remake the surface of Venus at some point, 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.680 which is really really interesting. Yeah, And I mean Earth's 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.520 crust is much younger than the planet itself, but Earth 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:22.720 has plate tectonics, which you know basically is crust recycling. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.280 Venus doesn't have that, so it is significant that the 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.640 crust is that much younger than the rest of the planet. 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.120 And it's also made up mostly of basalt um, which 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:33.920 I think in the history of stuff you should know 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:35.880 the thirteen year history. It's the first time I said 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.760 it correctly right off the bat instead of what we 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.520 used to say basalt or basil, basalt, basalt. I love 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:48.200 little sprinkle of basalt cream. Yeah, it's old bay mixed 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:53.360 with salt man um so uh, which is volcanic rock, 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.760 which makes sense because Venus has the most volcanoes of 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.400 any planet in the Solar System, something like six hundred. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.920 That's they might even still be active right now. So so, 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.960 but it's weird that the crust would be that old, 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.440 because it's like, why would have you know, all the 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.480 volcano has been erupting at around the same time in 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.960 such measure that it would have remade the entire crust 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.120 of the planet. It's a it's a head scratcher, as 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.720 you say it is. The surface of Venus has some 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:26.760 huge mountain ranges, some as high as Everest. They have 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.760 a couple of gigantic highlands um the size of Australia 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.360 and South America. You mentioned all those volcanoes, which is 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.360 just remarkable, Like the most volcanic planet in our Solar 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.600 system for sure, right, Yeah, by far, I mean I 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:49.280 think Earth only has like nine seven. Uh. They have 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.240 about the same gravity as we do here on Earth, 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:54.760 so you'd feel about the same weight. But there's a 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.320 little caveat there because of their dense atmosphere, which we're 0:16:58.320 --> 0:16:59.920 gonna talk about a little bit more in a menu 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:04.000 it here, there's tons of surface pressure, so if you 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.160 were there's no way you would be alive on Venus. 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.520 But if you happen to be, let's just say, it's 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.160 about ninety times the pressure that we have here on Earth, 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.200 So it would be like you're about a full kilometer 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.840 down underwater into the ocean, yeah, which is kind of crushing. 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:21.520 I was like, oh, you'd be crushed like a tin can, 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.120 And actually that's not entirely true. I think the diving 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.480 record is a little deeper than one kilometer, so a 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:30.639 human can withstand it, but it's not the kind of 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.760 thing you want to do. And when you combine it 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:35.600 with all the other issues that you've got going on 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.760 now that you're standing on Venus, somehow that pressure would 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.760 probably actually be the least of your worries before it 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.280 would be the heat. Yeah, you would have a lot 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.240 of trouble with the heat because, Um, here's another fun 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.560 fact for you. Mercury is the planet that's closest to 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.040 the Sun. It's twenty three million miles closer to the 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.200 Sun than Venus is. But Venus is the hottest planet 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.960 in our solar system. Want that for a second. Yeah, 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:04.840 and that'll all be clear here in a second. Um, 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:07.000 we're kind of dancing around it. But it's it's gonna 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:11.400 be fun, so just wait. But in the nineteen sixties, uh, 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:13.720 and we'll talk also talk about the various sort of 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.080 spacecraft that the USSR and NASA has kind of sent 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.800 up to explore. But the Mariner too recorded did a 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.919 little fly by and recorded surface temperatures, temperatures between three 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:28.280 d and four hundred degrees uh. And it turns out 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.800 that maybe about half I think recently they calculated it's 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.480 probably more like eight hundred and eighty degrees fahrenheit, which 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:40.920 basically will melt almost anything. M well, definitely aluminum, zinc, 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:45.880 and lead for sure. Yeah. So, um, it's super hot, 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:50.440 and it's there's a tremendous amount of pressure at surface level. 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.400 And I read this article from I think it might 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:55.720 have been space dot Com or NASA. I'm not sure 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.960 where you see Boulder Astronomer Planetary scientists named Kevin McKay 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.800 drake said, you can feel what it's like. I'm Venus 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.360 here on Earth. Heat a hot plate until it glows red, 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:07.800 place your palm on its surface, and then run over 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.240 that hand with the truck. I didn't get that quote. 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:12.720 He was saying, it's very hot and there's a tremendous 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:18.400 amount of pressure. I think degrees so is it no? 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.679 But I mean really, I think once you reach a 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:24.440 certain temperature and you're placing your hand, I think red hot? 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.240 Is that that that line where it's like after that? 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.000 Doesn't really think he was trying to be you know, 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.440 he's trying to appeal to the common person. I think 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.760 so they take an extra class or two now in 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:43.000 planetary science speak, their yeah you know, all right. So 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.399 I guess we've been dancing around like why is it 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.240 so hot? If it's not as close to the sun 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:50.840 as mercury, how can it be that much hotter than mercury? 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:56.200 And it is because Venus is a an environmental nightmare basically, 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.119 and which is one reason why we're a little more 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.760 interested now because it gives us a peek, like I said, 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.400 to what could happen to us in a very long time. 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.240 But it is. It is a a CEO two nightmare 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:13.199 on Venus. Yes, so UM, Venus is locked into a 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.840 run what's called a runaway greenhouse effect UM, and I 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.240 actually talked about it in the End of the World 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:25.440 with Josh Clark Um in the Natural Existential Risks episode. UM. 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.399 But the kind of the broad strokes of it is 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.320 that the greenhouse effect. You you want to have some 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:35.560 degree of the greenhouse effect where you have um visible 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.960 light coming in from the sun warming the planet, and 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.120 then the planet re releases some of that heat back 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:46.800 through the atmosphere as infrared heat, and not all of 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.760 it gets re emitted. Some of it is captured by 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:53.480 greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And this is actually, like 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:55.520 I was saying, you want to have this. This is 0:20:55.560 --> 0:21:00.800 a beneficial thing because it prevents wild temperature swing between 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.919 day and night. There's like a nice average temperature that 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.440 you're going to keep throughout the day and throughout the 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.600 night because the atmosphere is acting like a blanket preventing 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:12.480 all of the heat from re escaping, So you do 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.920 want some greenhouse gas. But what Venus is teaching us 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.040 is that there's a there's a point where you can 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.159 where you can reach this this point of no return 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:27.480 where your greenhouse gas greenhouse effect. Um, it just goes 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:30.720 hey wire and becomes it gets locked into a positive 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.320 feedback loop that is positive only in the most academic 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.480 sense of that term. In no way is it a 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:40.520 good thing at least as far as life or habitability goes. Yeah, 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.359 and Venus hit this tipping point a few hundred million 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.320 years ago. Um, the atmosphere got really hot. They basically 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:52.840 think the oceans literally boiled off. And you know, because 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:55.359 there used to be make oceans and rivers and it 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:57.720 used to be a lot more earth like. But these 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.920 oceans boiled off turned the atmosphere into water vapor, which 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.760 just made the problem a lot worse because that's another 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.840 greenhouse gas. And it just sort of accelerated this thing. 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.159 And then eventually that water vapor was broken apart by 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.440 radiation from the sun, by this ultra violet radiation, and 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:20.560 all this hydrogen escaped into space, left behind oxygen combining 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.159 with that carbon, and what you've got is, oh, what 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:29.199 carbon dioxide and no water vapor in the atmosphere. No, 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:34.679 and so Earth has I think point zero four carbon 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.679 dioxide in our atmosphere and we still are able to 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.800 maintain like a healthy greenhouse gas effect. So so the 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.080 fact that that it's a runaway greenhouse effect that seems 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.359 to have made um Venus into this hell escape that 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.119 it is, that's what kind of makes it a cautionary 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.600 tail or at least something that's worth investigating much more 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.119 deeply to find out, like how did it reach this point? 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:01.320 Like where was that tipping point? Because you know, here 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:05.920 on Earth we're contributing atmospheric CEO two more and more 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:09.440 frequently thanks to the burning of fossil fuels. So it's like, okay, 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:11.679 you know, did it hit that point when it reached 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:17.040 like uh an atmosphere carbon dioxide or point zero zero eight? 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:19.520 You know what's the what's the difference? And it really 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:22.879 matters to us here on Earth because at some point 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:27.280