yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Venus 101 | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

(Ethereal music) - [Angeli Gabriel] Named after the ancient Roman goddess of beauty, Venus is known for its exceptional brightness in the night sky. But behind this facade is a world of storms and infernos unlike anywhere else in the solar system.

Venus, the second planet from the sun, is very similar to Earth from a distance. But up close, it's a very different world. Venus is about the same size as Earth, just slightly smaller. Its structure is also nearly identical, with an iron core, a hot mantle, and a rocky crust.

The crust of Venus, however, is dotted with thousands of volcanoes, including Maxwell Montes, a volcano almost as tall as Mount Everest. Venus also has a thick layered atmosphere. It's full of clouds that rain (thunder cracking) sulfuric acid and whip around the planet at speeds up to 224 miles per hour. Faster than some category five hurricanes.

The atmosphere is so thick that it creates a surface pressure similar to what it would be about half a mile deep in the Earth's oceans. This pressure is heavy enough that a human standing on Venus' surface would be crushed. The atmosphere is made of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, which create an extreme case of global warming.

They trap the sun's heat, causing surface temperatures to rise over 880 degrees Fahrenheit, making Venus the hottest planet in the solar system. Venus is so inhospitable that neither humans nor spacecraft are able to survive the planet's surface.

But some scientists speculate that Venus wasn't always so unwelcoming. From roughly 2.9 billion to 715 million years ago, global temperatures on Venus may have been just a few degrees cooler than Earth's are today. And scientists theorize that the surface may have contained shallow oceans that could have held enough water to support life.

(Bright instrumental music) Today, life may still exist in Venus' atmosphere. About 30 miles up in Venus' clouds, where the temperature and surface pressure are similar to those on the surface of Earth, scientists have observed strange dark streaks that appear to be absorbing ultraviolet radiation. A phenomenon that could be evidence of microbial life.

Life may struggle to survive in the atmosphere of Venus, but it is this unforgiving environment that's made Venus an icon of beauty. It reflects 70% of all the sunlight that reaches the planet, which is why Venus shines more brightly than any other planet or star in the night sky.

While more than 40 unmanned spacecraft have visited this infernal world, Venus, so illuminated in the darkness of space, still has much to reveal.

More Articles

View All
I'm quitting my med school
I’m quitting from my med school. If you have been following this channel for a while, and if you have ever watched my med school vlogs, you might think that, “Oh, I knew that because this girl was so unmotivated to go to med school.” She was doing all of …
Subject, direct object, and indirect object | Syntax | Khan Academy
Hello Chrome, Mary, and hello Rosie. Hi David! So, today we’re going to be talking about subject, direct object, and indirect object, identifying those within a sentence. But first, I suppose we should figure out what those things are. So, we’ve talked a…
How to Identify a Brown Recluse Spider - Smarter Every Day 89
ADEs, me Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day! So, we were in my daughter’s bathroom. I have been informed that there was a spider. That’s, well, I’m the dad; that’s what I do. I slay spiders. Before I destroy him in a fantastic way—well, however I …
Verifying solutions to differential equations | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
[Instructor] So let’s write down a differential equation: the derivative of y with respect to x is equal to four y over x. And what we’ll see in this video is the solution to a differential equation isn’t a value or a set of values. It’s a function or a…
Examples thinking about multiplying even and odd numbers
We are told Liam multiplies two numbers and gets an even product. What could be true about the numbers Liam multiplied? It says choose two answers, so pause this video and see if you can figure out which two of these could be true. All right, now let’s d…
Flamethrower vs Aerogel
[Music] This is the ultimate test of aerogel. I put myself on the line to see who wins in the Battle of flamethrower versus aerogel. [Music] So if you really want to see the insulating properties of aerogel, you got to put it to the test. This material he…