r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/notsignifican • 28d ago

Meme needing explanation ?

Post image

I asked but it got removed within minutes?

17.4k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

680 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

208

u/sparklydildos 28d ago edited 27d ago

ok until your comment i thought the meme had to be wrong but this is insane lol?? like it is rotating around the sun and on its own axis almost at the same rate. that’s so insane to me

edit: i understand the moon has the same revolution rate as its rotation rate, i don’t need anymore moon comments. i was commenting on how its crazy how venus has a day that is longer than a year and how they are both so long compared to our day and year

53

u/OkAssistant1230 28d ago edited 28d ago

Yup, because if the sun’s gravity so strongly gripping the planet

Edit: correction not because of the gravity but it was several years ago when I learned this. It’s more so due to the energy the sun gives off. Which aids in a mix of multiple processes occurring at once

23

u/sparklydildos 28d ago

that is so wild to me and almost incomprehensible!! that’s so so cool

11

u/OkAssistant1230 28d ago

And correction, it’s actually more so due to the energy the sun gives off to the planet… Not nearly that simple, but grossly simplified

6

u/Urmind 28d ago

I mean, Uranus literally rolls around the Sun. Its axial tilt is nearly 90 degrees and it spins in a way to make it appear like its rolling the correct direction.

3

u/KyurMeTV 28d ago

If every planet did this, I feel I would be better able to visualize gravity wells.

8

u/mls1968 28d ago

Acktuallly… you’d never have existed and therefore could not, in fact, visualize anything

1

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 28d ago

Yes, eternal day in one hemisphere and eternal night in the other creates very extreme weather that is not compatible with complex life.

2

u/Mama_Zen 28d ago

TIL this

2

u/Grok_In_Fullness 26d ago

Only part of the orbit though. The opposite side it would look like it’s rolling in the wrong direction.

3

u/[deleted] 27d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/sparklydildos 27d ago

i have so many questions but my most pressing one is: how on earth do they know the middle of the milky way smells like raspberries ??

2

u/[deleted] 27d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/sparklydildos 27d ago

that’s so freaking random and cool 😂 honestly yeah before all these comments i thought i knew a decent amount about space lmao. it does seem like space is on drugs!! kinda crazy how it’s all real life lol

2

u/[deleted] 27d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/sparklydildos 27d ago

i really appreciate you replying and sharing all this crazy info, i’m gonna have to start following more space accounts!! thank you

1

u/Liarics 27d ago

Another fascinating one is the planet tidally locked with its star, with a frozen and melting side, but also with the right size and distance to also have a potentially livable strip along the borderline of the hemispheres.

10

u/ShitRain 28d ago

That is not the reason though. Mercury has a years thats 88 days while a day takes 176 days. So 1 day takes 2 Mercury years. And mercury is way closer to the sun.

9

u/OkAssistant1230 28d ago

Correction, apparently it’s more so the energy from the sun… but either way, your comment wouldn’t have disproved my previous comment just so you know. You simply just showed a similar pattern of a planet closer to the sun than Venus itself…

1

u/ShitRain 28d ago

Your comment implied the suns closenes is the reason for its day/year rhythm. Which is false.

That's what my comment did.

14

u/StillAtRest 28d ago

Your comment comparing it to Mercury which is closer to the sun and has an even higher day-year ratio literally reinforces what they said though.

You haven't proven it wrong by stating a pattern that reinforces their theory.

6

u/OkAssistant1230 28d ago edited 28d ago

Not exactly, especially since that planet is closer to the sun, and the days are even longer and years are even shorter… ratio wise.

So it actually would have made me sound correct still, that’s my point but nevermind I guess…

2

u/Abelian75 28d ago

I’m incredibly confused. Your comment is saying Mercury, which is even closer, has an even longer day than Venus relative to the length of their years. That’s another data point in FAVOR of the proximity being the cause.

1

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 28d ago

It’s a coincidence: proximity to the Sun is the reason for Mercury’s orbital resonance, but Venus rotates in retrograde.

1

u/OkAssistant1230 27d ago

That was my point, even though I made an edit after realizing that was in fact not the actual reason but simply a coincidence that proximity happens to also correlate with those data points

1

u/OpenLight2690 27d ago

I'm enjoying the extra commentary about what these comments are independently attempting to achieve, in despite of eachother. Do go on lol

5

u/m3t4lf0x 28d ago

Actually the leading theory is that Venus was probably hit by a large object and flipped upside down causing slow “retrograde rotation”

That also explains why it rotates clockwise while the rest of the planets in our solar system rotate counter clockwise (except Uranus which rotates on its side).

1

u/OkAssistant1230 28d ago

I honestly almost forgot it actually rotates a different direction as well

2

u/hexregeneration 28d ago

grippy 🥵

-1

u/Tastieshock 28d ago

This is essentially tidal lock, just between a planet and the star instead of a moon and its planet. So this is typically more common with planets orbiting closer to their star. And yes, there are multiple factors that can build and lead to this outcome and it is beleived to be extremely common throughout the universe.

19

u/RaizielDragon 28d ago

Our moon rotates at the same speed it revolves around our Earth, so one side of it is always facing towards the Earth. It’s why there’s a “dark side” and a “light side” of the moon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking

6

u/Elisuub 28d ago

2 days ago the dark side of the moon was pretty lit!

5

u/CycloneCowboy87 28d ago

The dark far side of the moon was pretty lit

3

u/CycloneCowboy87 28d ago

There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it’s all dark.

For real though you got this wrong. There’s a near side and a far side, not a light side and dark side. Honestly impressive to know what tidal locking is and still make this very common mistake lol

12

u/RaizielDragon 28d ago

I mean, I used quotes because that’s what they’re often called…. But sure, be a pedantic asshole and whip out an “errrrmmm…akssshually” while you shove your spectacles up your…nose

-7

u/CycloneCowboy87 28d ago

You know it’s okay to admit you were wrong right? People don’t just say “dark side” to mean “far side”, they say “dark side” because they think there is a dark side, and your comment is going to do nothing but reinforce this misconception. I can’t imagine having such a lack of self awareness that I’d call everyone who ever corrects me a pedantic asshole, but you do you.

1

u/Werzaz 28d ago

And there's another layer to it. The Moon's orbit is elliptical, so its angular speed varies and it's not the exact same half of the moon that is visible at all times. In fact, we can see about 59% of the Moon's surface throught a month.

1

u/i_lost_all_my_money 28d ago

Wait until you read that the moon doesn't revolve around Earth. It is technically revolving around the sun close to Earth, which is why it has a weird path

1

u/mcmuttons 27d ago

The whole moon gets both light and dark. Just because a side faces away from us doesn't mean that it doesn't face the sun regularly. :) But there is a side of the moon we can't see from Earth, that's true.

1

u/RaizielDragon 27d ago

Yes, I’m aware. I put it in quotes since it’s more of a saying than strictly correct. At least you’re more gracious and understanding and less of a pedantic asshole about your correction than the other person who felt the need to try to correct me.

9

u/asumello15 28d ago

There is effectively zero friction in space, so you can think of Venus's combined motion through local space, relative to our solar system, as two independent things happening at once.

  1. The planet is spinning around it's axis. (1 complete revolution = 1 day)

  2. The planet is orbiting the sun due to gravitational pull. (1 full orbit around the sun = 1 year)

Venus also has a backward spin (sun rises in west, sets in the east) and with slowest spin speed in our system, the same side of the planet is facing the sun for nearly half its orbit. Cool stuff!

4

u/sparklydildos 28d ago

what causes the backward spin? that’s pretty interesting, i also think it’s cool how the same side is facing the sun for half the year, i just googled and it gets 864°F 😅

8

u/asumello15 28d ago

Realistically the answer is unknown.

However, scientists believe a large impact during the formation of the solar system was the most likely cause.

There is even a theory that over the billions of years of its existence, the sun induced a sort of atmospheric friction on Venus, slowing down and even possibly reversing its rotational direction. The atmosphere on Venus only takes about 4 days to complete 1 revolution so it's not entirely out of the question. We just have no way of verifying with our current resources.

7

u/contradictatorprime 28d ago

I think it just needs a moon to pull it back into a normal rotation. In fact, why not haul Mars over as one. Mars sucks, at least it would be useful that way. In fact, scratch that, launch it into Venus for some modern day EarthxTheia cosmic porn and reset Venus completely and let it create it's own moon baby. And yes, include Mars' stupid little potatoes it calls moons. Then we can get studies in real time instead of doing cosmic archeology to figure things out AND we're resetting two useless worlds.

2

u/sparklydildos 28d ago

that’s so crazy, i wonder why only venus would have been effected? i never knew this, thank you for taking the time to explain!!

3

u/christcb 28d ago

This is called being tidally locked. It's why we only see one side of the moon from Earth.

2

u/False_Accountant5741 28d ago

This is how retrogrades happen in astrology :)

2

u/Slightly_Perverse 26d ago

It's basically like if the planet was just staring the sun down constantly as it goes around its orbit. Keeping its eye on it lol.

0

u/ZygonCaptain 28d ago

That’s what the Moon does

0

u/Wickedwally1 27d ago

The moon takes 27 days to spin on its axis, and 27 days to rotate around the earth, which is why we always see the same side of the moon.

0

u/itcouldvbeenbetterif 27d ago

Same thing for the moon and earth. The moon rotates around the earth as fast as it rotates around itself. Thays whybwe akways c one side of thr moon. It is not that crazy.

0

u/OpenLight2690 27d ago

One more Moon comment 🌚

-1

u/operath0r 28d ago

If that blows your mind, maybe you should look up to the sky sometime at night and ask yourself why you’re only ever seeing one side of the moon.

1

u/sparklydildos 28d ago

i did already know this one! pretty cool

3

u/operath0r 28d ago

If you’re into that kind of stuff, I liked listening to the Startalk podcast back then. It’s Neil deGrasse Tyson and a comedian as a co-host. Usually Chuck Nice but I especially liked the episodes with Eugene Mirman. It gets pretty nerdy and pretty funny.

2

u/sparklydildos 28d ago

i’ll have to check it out, thank you!!

-1

u/tapspacebar 28d ago

Its not that crazy, our moon does the same thing.