Venus: Crash Course Astronomy #14

Venus is a gorgeous naked-eye planet, hanging like a diamond in the twilight -- but its beauty is best looked at from afar. Even though Mercury is closer to the sun, Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, due to a runaway greenhouse effect, and has the most volcanic activity in the solar system. Its north and south poles were flipped, causing it to rotate backward and making for very strange days on this beautiful but inhospitable world.

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Chapters:
Introduction: Venus 00:00
Venus's Phases 0:55
Transit of Venus 1:31
Venus's Atmosphere 3:06
How did Venus get so hot? 4:13
Venus's Slow Rotation & Retrograde Motion 6:02
Venus's Spherical Structure 7:09
Venus's Surface 7:48
Volcanic Activity on Venus 8:31
Review 10:04
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Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?

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PHOTOS/VIDEOS
Naked-eye Venus photo taken by Phil Plait

[Kolossus_]

rain acid? snow metal? hot has hell?

most hardcore planet ever.

[marcushead]

"Venus was cooler when it was younger."


Weren't we all.


(lights a cigarette and watches the sunset morosely)

[crashcourse]

This is a corrected reupload of yesterday's Venus episode!

Venus is a gorgeous naked-eye planet, hanging like a diamond in the twilight -- but it’s beauty is best looked at from afar. Even though Mercury is closer to the sun, Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, due to a runaway greenhouse effect, and has the most volcanic activity in the solar system. Its north and south poles were flipped, causing it to rotate backwards and making for very strange days on this beautiful but inhospitable world.

[slpk]

Seems like a great place to play the-floor-is-lava

[AbhiBass]

"Goddess of Love..."

"Venus is Hell..."

Sounds 'bout right...

[thecoolestcorgi]

Interesting story about misidentifying Venus. HMAS Sydney was fighting in the Mediterranean in early WW2. At one point, the ship began to fire on what they thought was an Italian high altitude spotter aircraft. Eventually, after expending most of the ammunition for their heavy anti aircraft battery, the ship realized that they were firing at Venus.

[ananya]

I love how astronomers name stuff - pancake domes, spaghettification.

[dafiltafish]

Venus is fascinating, I wish we had more surface information on it.

[MartinStaykov]

It seems like astronomers' answer to everything is "...oh there must have been a massive collision at some point".

[svillegassmusic]

Did anyone else get really depressed when they found out we won't be seeing any Venus transits?

[joshuavildor]

Yesterday I got to see Venus in the sky when the sun was setting. It is by far the most mesmerizing experience I ever had in my astronomy class. I was so hyped, I continued looking at it when I got home.

[jack-fp]

I saw 2004 transition and it was really amazing...I remember I was in 10th grade and it was truly mind feel lucky that I was able to see it even without having any special equipment. I'll never forget that in my life :-)

[radishraccoon]

It's kind of a ridiculously interesting planet.

[gephc]

I've got 99 Venusian problems, but a calendar ain't one.

[robinchesterfield]

Venus is SCARY, yo. I had this book called "Our Universe" as a kid, and in the chapter about Venus, at one point they described the atmosphere as being so thick that "if you dropped a plate edge-on, it would swish from side to side as it fell, like it was sinking through water instead of air". Don't know how accurate that is, but it's a damn memorable image!

[Hkler]

This series is excellent, really enjoying it. Thank you.

[senatorjosephmccarthy]

Thanks for the Venus info. About 31 years ago, when he was maybe 9, my son and I were coming ashore from his 8' sailboat, and saw Mercury in transit, crossing the sun from left to right and diagonal down about 40° from horizontal. It looked like the image here but crossing the sun's lower half. The sun was around 10° from the western horizon, and the cloud layer was just thick enough to see the sun without it being too bright to look at. Chance of a lifetime.

[ev.c]

This are beautiful, well-designed and well-written episodes. Thanks for helping spreading science abroad. You are definitively one of the best channels on Youtube.

[TheDraconifors]

I'm really enjoying these episodes on planets. I feel like I'm learning a lot more than I ever have in a High School science class.

[inksplatter]

I learn so much more from these videos than I ever did from my college astronomy class! Why can't more education be at this quality?