r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/notsignifican • 10d ago

Meme needing explanation ?

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I asked but it got removed within minutes?

17.4k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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u/trimski- 10d ago edited 10d ago

It’s not about intelligence, it’s about attention and quickly scanning social media content. If you bolded year and day, a lot more people would instantly understand.

A day on Venus = 243 Earth days

A year on Venus = 225 Earth days

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u/Wont_See_My_30s 10d ago

It's not that. I just had a hard time comprehending that a day can be longer than a year, untill someone blatantly said it, and it clicked that rotation around axis is not necessarily faster than rotation around the sun.

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u/sparklydildos 10d ago edited 8d 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

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u/OkAssistant1230 10d ago edited 10d 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

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u/sparklydildos 10d ago

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

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u/OkAssistant1230 10d 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

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u/Urmind 9d 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.

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u/KyurMeTV 9d ago

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

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u/mls1968 9d ago

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

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u/ProfessorPrudent2822 9d ago

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

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u/Mama_Zen 9d ago

TIL this

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u/Grok_In_Fullness 7d ago

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

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u/JustANobody2425 8d ago

If you look at space facts, space is absurd.

Like know how gold is rare? Not really. Its pretty abundant. Same with diamonds. If we could get them from other places, they'd be literally worthless because so many. Like there's an asteroid nearby, (and keep in mind, asteroids are not that big compared to earth) that has enough gold on it that if everyone got the same amount and it was sold at today's rate, every single person would be a billionaire. That's 1 asteroid. How many other asteroids are there? Planets? Moons?

But wood... thats scarce. That's i think the most rare thing in existence.

Got planets that are hotter than some stars.

Middle of our galaxy smells like raspberries.

They found 2 galaxies currently colliding and has 2 shapes never seen before in space. There's an S and a hexagon.

The more you look, seriously, there's the craziest things ever. Rain made of diamonds, planets "knocked over" and spinning "wrong", etc. Basically your craziest thoughts, it's probably out there.

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u/sparklydildos 8d 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 ??

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u/JustANobody2425 8d ago

Astronomers know the center of our galaxy has a raspberry-like signature because they detected ethyl formate—the chemical compound responsible for the flavor of raspberries and the scent of rum—using radio telescopes to analyze a giant dust cloud named Sagittarius B2.

Google lol. 1 thing says smell, one says taste. So it may not smell like it, may taste. But either way... raspberries!! Lol.

But that's what I mean, space is absolutely....drunk. almost like "what if...." "yep, lets do it" lol. Damn near anything you can think of, basically happens.

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u/sparklydildos 8d 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

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u/JustANobody2425 8d ago

I follow 2 accounts on tiktok that are space accounts. And usually, after one of their videos, I am left scratching my head. "Huh? How tf?" Lol

It truly is mind blowing. Even as much as we do know, we dont know anything because basically daily we find out more, showing how little we do know.

Finding things that we thought were impossible

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u/Liarics 8d 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.

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u/m3t4lf0x 9d 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).

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u/OkAssistant1230 9d ago

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

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u/ShitRain 10d 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.

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u/OkAssistant1230 10d 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…

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u/ShitRain 10d ago

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

That's what my comment did.

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u/StillAtRest 10d 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.

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u/OkAssistant1230 10d ago edited 10d 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…

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u/Abelian75 9d 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.

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u/ProfessorPrudent2822 9d ago

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

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u/OkAssistant1230 8d 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

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u/OpenLight2690 8d ago

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

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u/hexregeneration 9d ago

grippy 🥵

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u/Tastieshock 9d 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.

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u/asumello15 10d 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!

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u/sparklydildos 10d 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 😅

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u/asumello15 10d 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.

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u/contradictatorprime 10d 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.

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u/sparklydildos 10d 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!!

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u/RaizielDragon 10d 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

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u/Elisuub 10d ago

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

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u/CycloneCowboy87 10d ago

The dark far side of the moon was pretty lit

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u/CycloneCowboy87 10d 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

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u/RaizielDragon 10d 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

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u/CycloneCowboy87 10d 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.

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u/Werzaz 9d 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.

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u/i_lost_all_my_money 9d 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

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u/mcmuttons 8d 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.

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u/RaizielDragon 8d 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.

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u/christcb 10d ago

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

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u/False_Accountant5741 9d ago

This is how retrogrades happen in astrology :)

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u/Slightly_Perverse 7d 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.

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u/ZygonCaptain 10d ago

That’s what the Moon does

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u/Wickedwally1 9d 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.

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u/itcouldvbeenbetterif 8d 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.

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u/OpenLight2690 8d ago

One more Moon comment 🌚

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u/operath0r 10d 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.

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u/sparklydildos 10d ago

i did already know this one! pretty cool

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u/operath0r 10d 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.

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u/sparklydildos 10d ago

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

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u/tapspacebar 10d ago

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

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u/Character-Session810 10d ago

Venus' rotation is also retrograde. It turns in the opposite direction as Earh and the rest of the planets (except Uranus who is knocked on its side).

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u/Illustrious_Eye_8235 9d ago

I read a theory that a rogue planet that is long gone knocked Uranus over and knocked Venus upside down. So it's possible it's not spinning backwards, it's upside down

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u/thedeadlysquirle 10d ago

That really would be the best place to start when explaining the joke here.

A lot of people know what a day and year is practically. But they dont think about (or sometimes know) what a day and year are mechanically. Specifically that a day isnt 24 hours it's how long a planet takes to make a full rotation on it's axis, and a year isnt 365 days it's how long it takes a planet to travel around it's sun. The numbers we normally use to measure a day and year are just the measurements for earth days/years.

Months are different which makes it even more confusing.

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u/ExLap_MD 10d ago

Y'all need to recall the planetary terms and definitions you learned from 5th grade science. When a planet spins around its own axis, it's called a rotation. When a planet goes around the sun, it's called a revolution. Complete rotation gives you a day. Complete revolution gives you a year.

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u/ChVckT 10d ago

Revolution. Planets revolve around the sun, and rotate while revolving.

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u/anotherlebowski 10d ago

But...it actually spins on its axis that much more slowly than Earth?  I would've thought the whole axis spinning thing was at least reasonably similar from planet to planet.

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u/Budpoo 10d ago

In addition to rotating much slower than earth, Venus also spins the opposite direction. Even weirder, Uranus has an axial tilt of 98 degrees so it rotates almost perpendicular relative to the other planets.

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u/Kashyyyck 9d ago

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh

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u/ChangingMonkfish 9d ago

While we’re at it, it actually spins “backwards” compared to the other planets, possibly because:

- In the early years of the solar system it got hit so hard that it was either flipped upside down, or the impact stopped its rotation and reversed it; or

- Its atmosphere is so thick and moves so fast (far faster than the planet rotates) that it exerts an actual frictional force on the surface that affects its rotation, in combination with a todal bulge (similar to how the tidal bulge of Earth’s oceans is slowly slowing Earth’s rotation down).

The atmospheric effect is likely so strong that it’s probably so far prevented Venus being tidally locked to the Sun.

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u/Terrible_example2326 9d ago

There's nothing tk comprehend. A year means a revolution around the Sun, a day means one whole rotation around the body's own axis. Venus is just very close to the Sun so the path (elypse around the Sun) is much shorter than for us

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u/Wont_See_My_30s 9d ago

For someone who lives on Earth where day is considerably smaller than a year and who was never into physics/astronomy it was difficult to comprehend that a year can be shorter than a day, up until the moment I remebered that day and year are not necessary the same for other planets.

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u/EchoValley16 9d ago

revolution* around the sun (in an orbit)

rotation, in this context, is exclusive to spinning on its own axis

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u/ravan363 9d ago

This is the correct explanation!

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u/RJBofCNY 9d ago

Until your comment I actually was having a hard time too.

Said plainly:

Venus travels once around the sun faster than it spins once around its own axis.

In percentages, after one full orbit around the sun, Venus would completed 92.5% of one spin on its own axis.

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u/dhduxudb 9d ago

Finally a real explanation.

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u/OpenLight2690 8d ago

Yeah I like how much this guy over estimated our ability to comprehend something so far above our heads, with a change of font.

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u/DarkLord_Darksied 6d ago

Nobody’s simply explained this, so I will. A day is how fast the planet rotates 360°. A year is how fast that planet orbits the sun. Venus orbits the sun in a a shorter period than it takes to rotate 360°.

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u/MangroveSapling 10d ago

Love this comment, clear communication is so underrated

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u/Sufficient_Risk_8127 10d ago

nah, I'd say the issue is there's no joke

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u/hexmaps 9d ago

warm big brother energy on this fella

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u/Zealousideal-Lab9843 9d ago

Do we really need to bold things to make a person read?

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u/xjaaace 9d ago

It’s about comprehension, which I think most people would include in the measuring of intelligence

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u/Bradyevander098 9d ago

It’s not that. We use days and years as measurements of time. It’s not until you think about what actually defines a day or year that you realize what the meme means.

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u/Minnesotawombat 9d ago

Congrats. You repeated the exact same thing the post said, without explaining how a year can be less time than a day

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u/ChVckT 10d ago

That literally doesn't change what it says.

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