Venus: Earth's Evil Twin

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Whoever decided Venus was the goddess of beauty really had no idea just how hot she really is

Venus is, truly, an absolutely awful place. Honestly the Russians successfully landing a probe and getting pictures and data back was an underrated engineering accomplishment, just a phenomenal achievement.

Venus isn't evil, it's a survivor. Wanted an atmosphere like Earth, but didn't have a magnetosphere, she made it heavy. Wanted rain, but didn't have water, she rained sulfuric acid. At least Venus tries.

Simon absolutely loved delivering the “life, uh… finds a way” line. Could see it in his eyes.

Someone give this script writer a raise. This is some of the best writing I've ever heard in the Simonverse.

Venus rotates backwards, but it orbits in the exact same direction as all of the other planets

Venus is a pressure-cooker hellscape with an acidic atmosphere. Sounds like my last relationship.

Venus' strange rotation may be evidence of a major impact. Maybe that impact "killed" the planet.

“It could even make Los Angeles seem livable” LOL

I've been watching this man's beard grow and grow for years. You know your beard is legendary when it's just as interesting as the content

Venus has long been an underrated planet in my opinion. Whether there's life in its clouds or not, it can still teach us so much about how wrong things can go for a terrestrial planet.

Not only is she Earth's evil twin, she's her fire and her desire

Venus has retrograde rotation on it's axis, but not a retrograde motion in it's orbit.

1:35 - Chapter 1 - The morning star
6:35 - Chapter 2 - How a planet dies
11:45 - Mid roll ads
13:05 - Chapter 3 - How a planet dies (II)
17:20 - Chapter 4 - When lost twins met
21:30 - Chapter 5 - Breaking the curse
- Chapter 6 -

As someone who lives in LA….

I would move to Venus in a heartbeat.

The guardian joke had me almost spit out my food. Bloody brilliant, fact boi.

Had the opportunity to work on Venus during the Magellan Mission, mapping the surface along one of the better Pioneer Venus gravity lines. I still have my original hand drawn maps somewhere in the house.

I’m surprised some of your graphics show much more cratering on the surface than there should be.

As for the big difference, I think it is the Moon. The impact that created our Moon also sped the rotation of the Earth so that it is today a little over 200 times faster than Venus. After the impact we were rotating up to 4 times faster than today. Interestingly when you look at the Magnetic Field of Venus it’s approximately 200 times weaker than the Earth’s Magnetic Field. Without some sort of impact vent to rev up the rotation of the planet it was stuck with a weak magnetic field, and days so long that surface temperatures were able to quickly sore and cause a run away greenhouse affect. Additionally, I hypothesize Earth Style Plate Tectonics needs a massive impact event to create the necessary conditions to allow the convection within the resulting magma/lava ocean to evolve into what we now know as plate tectonics. This would also have aided in starting a carbon cycle capable of locking CO2 into carbonate rocks, much like appears to have happened on Earth after the Moon Forming Event.

Man do I love the way Simon gets all happy for the space topics, and that so-boyish and charming grin when he talks about missions for the future!

Notably, there's an altitude band in the clouds that might be pretty decent for human habitation. Altitudes at which temperatures are comfortable are going to be a bit low on the pressure, but still high enough to run a comfortable oxygen-nitrogen mix without drastic increase of a fire risk. There is also less sulfuric acid at these altitudes, which while still extremely corrosive to metals, opens up a door to construction from certain kinds of plastics or metals coated in plastics. Comfortable Earth-like gravity, comfortable temperatures, and equalized pressure means that a simple and light habitat construction can be suspended by balloons. Since there is no significant pressure difference, any breach would not be an immediate danger, possibly fixable with some duct tape, and even if you have to go outside briefly in an emergency, you can survive by just holding your breath - though, you'll need shower immediately afterwards to get rid of the acid. Still, way better than Mars, where you'll be dead within seconds. The wind speeds are very high at that altitude, but they are non-turbulent, so you're just carried with the clouds at high speeds. Around equator, it would also give you a very reasonable day-night cycle as you circumnavigate Venus. There is enough sunlight reaching these altitudes to power solar panels and grow plants, and you can extract sulfuric acid to process into water and use it to grow algae for air, nutrition, and even to process into fuel and plastics. If you can find a way to collect minerals from the surface and lift them to the station via balloons, this place could be entirely self-reliant. All in all, not the worst place to set up a colony.