After reading an interesting article on Venus, the so-called ‘Morning Star [despite that it is a planet], and researching a few of its references, I came up with two truisms:

There is some weird but factual stuff out there.
Nothing is ever quite as it seems.

Why so? … well, first the ‘weird’, and then the ‘could that be right?’

As I tried to compute the following strange behaviours of Venus, our ‘nearest’ [… but is that even true?] partner in space, one word popularised in the recent US Presidential debate came immediately to mind … ‘weird’ … though which of the two candidates was weird—or ‘the weirdest’—ultimately devolved to a toss-up. I will let you to be the judge

Most cosmic day-to-day realities are hard to get your head about, and Venus is one of them. As I sat in the sun in my easy chair, I struggled with the following cosmic conundrums, all contained in a NASA fact sheet [edited quotations from it are italicised below] …

https://science.nasa.gov/venus/venus-facts/

“… on Venus, a single Venus day (i.e. a full rotation of the planet on its axis) is actually longer than a Venus year (i.e. one complete orbit around the Sun). This is because of the planet’s extremely slow rotation and unusual rotational direction.

As I thought about it, I grabbed a lemon and a grape, skewered the grape in its long axis with a toothpick, then played rotate and swivel until I had it fixed in my head. Odd, definitely weird, but interesting, too. Moving on …

“… a Venus’ day’ [defined as the time it takes for the planet to complete one full rotation on its axis] lasts about 243 Earth days. In contrast, a Venus’ year’ [defined as the time it takes to complete one orbit around the Sun] is only about 225 Earth days. Simplified, Venus’s rotation is so slow that it takes more time to spin once on its axis than to circle around the Sun.

Then it begins to get really hairy! Venus is the planet that keeps on giving!

“… another peculiarity of Venus is that it rotates [spins] in the opposite direction to most planets in the Solar System, a motion known as retrograde rotation. On Venus, the Sun appears to rise in the west and set in the east, unlike on Earth, where it rises in the east and sets in the west … [though it occurred to me to wonder how one might determine east and west when standing on Venus]!

This backward rotation and its slow speed contribute to the extended length of a Venusian day.”

As I sought to model this, my grape became rapidly squishier [in about an Earth minute], and I immediately thought of wine. One grape? … not quite, but the thought tempted me to the cellar!

“… scientists theorize that Venus’s slow and retrograde rotation could be due to a past collision with another large celestial body or complex gravitational interactions with the Sun and other planets. These factors may have influenced Venus’s rotation speed and direction over millions of years.

Venus’s dense atmosphere also plays a significant role in its planetary dynamics. It is thick and toxic, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide and clouds of sulfuric acid. This atmosphere traps heat, creating surface temperatures high enough to melt lead and making Venus the hottest planet in the Solar System, despite Mercury being closer to the Sun.

This combination of slow, retrograde rotation and a dense, heat-trapping atmosphere makes Venus a unique subject of study, as it defies many expectations set by other planets.

Understanding these characteristics of Venus helps scientists gain insights into planetary formation, atmospheric dynamics, and the diverse possibilities of planetary evolution in our Solar System.”

As if that were not enough, another of my lifetime truisms … Venus is our nearest planet … was challenged by an article in Physics Today … https://tinyurl.com/mtsuy9dj … which hinged on the difference between ‘nearest’ and ‘closest’. These authors claim that, in celestial terms, closest and nearest do not mean quite the same thing, and nothing is ever quite as it seems!

Edited and italicised, these authors have thrown a spanner in the solar works—Chris Bowen move over— with the following …

Common sense and conventional wisdom would say our closest next-door neighbour is Venus: it does come closer to the Earth, and its orbit is closer to ours than any other planet. But is it the nearest planet? It seems not!

These scientists have crunched the numbers and found that, on average, Mercury is our closest planet … and get this: not only to Earth but to every other planet in the solar system.

Their word to underscore their calculations is … ‘trippy’! So … how could this be true?

The scientists developed a model that simulated the orbits of all planets and computed the distance between any two of them at any one time and over thousands of orbit years. They then averaged those distances to find out which planets are the closest to each other over time. Surprisingly, they found Mercury was closest to all seven other planets.

Two immediate thoughts emerge … [1] your taxes at work, and [2] it’s impossible and can’t be right.

Well, it turns out that it is, for we forget that:

‘… every planet spends about half its time on the opposite side of the Sun!

To use one example—Earth and Venus—although Venus does get very close to Earth, it also spends plenty of time very far away. Earth, while it is closer to Venus than Mercury when both planets are on the same side of the Sun, the separation is vast when they are on opposite sides.

While ‘nearest’ is commonly taken to mean the distance between the two planets’ orbits, Mercury is the ‘closest’ in cosmic time. The same goes for all the others, too.

Now there’s a way to choke on your weekend Weeties. It may be semantics, true … and to be honest, why care? … but it is fun to try and get your head around it all.

The NASA fact sheet is alive with other ‘fun facts’ about Venus, our ‘nearest’—though not strictly our ‘closest’—neighbour. If you have an hour or so to spare on a summer’s day, are intrigued by the cosmos, and want to expand your knowledge of our heavens, it is an interesting and easy read.

And, while Venus is undoubtedly weird, I guess there is more than enough that is weird—and closer to home—with much of it being pumped out from the “muppets” [Kaleb Cooper’s word from ‘Clarkson’s Farm’] in Canberra.

John Agar

Feature Writer

A word from the chairman

Hello

As we move into Christmas week, it is important that we reflect on what we are celebrating. It is not our contribution to the profits of the major retailers, or the social extravaganzas styled as “Christmas parties”. It is the birth of Jesus Christ in a stable in Bethlehem. Yes, Bethlehem which was then a small and relatively insignificant town about 10 kilometres from Jerusalem. It is now part of Palestine and sits in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in the middle of a war that has no end and no winners. As we celebrate Christmas Day (and yes, it is Christmas Day not Happy Holiday!), let’s stop for a minute and think about those who are suffering loss and pain, particularly in the Middle East, through no fault of their own. They mourn the loss of loved ones, worry for the safety of their families and fear what tomorrow brings. They are not terrorists, they are ordinary people trying to live their simple existence whether they be Jewish, Muslim or any other religion. It really doesn’t matter, they are all struggling to just survive.

May this Christmas be a time of peace in our community and the wider world. May we put our differences aside, whether they are political, racial or religious, and embrace our commonality, our humanity, because that is what we share and what will bind us together.

*****

We started our Christmas celebrations in style last Saturday with a big crowd of all ages gathering for Christmas Carols on St Cuthbert’s lawn, together with a seasonally appropriate sausage sizzle and a nativity scene. It was strange to see one of the wise men on his mobile phone, but he was apparently giving directions to his fellow travellers who couldn’t find the star as it was cloudy. All was well and they arrived just in time for the carols!

*****

What a sight to witness a cavalcade of clothes racks making their way up Mountjoy Parade as the Op Shop started its return journey to its spiritual home at number 98. After a spectacular and speedy makeover, the original Op Shop will be open for business on Sunday 22^nd. The River shop will continue to trade over summer as well, courtesy of the ongoing gracious hospitality of landlord Robbo. Thank you from the community. Congratulations to the Committee of Management on having the foresight to invest in the long-term future sustainability of the Shop, to the Renovation Committee, ably led by Paula Hayden, who ensured the smooth planning and construction of the project, and to the Relocation Committee who planned and conducted the two moves with seamless and military precision.

*****

This is my last call for you to contribute to the New Year’s Eve fireworks fundraiser. We have received generous support from local traders and residents, but we need one last push to get to our target. Every donation counts, so please give at https://tinyurl.com/lorne-nye-fireworks.

Happy Christmas

John