https:/.../VenusDeathOfAPlanet_Breaks_Stereo.mp4?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEOn%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQDMtbyjEWBJV%2FasclcyoGkGwVHFf6MgRDCEIHuXvAbZIgIgJKfDRIybUA37QkBLNJpa6EgHkrUfRLakNTdfBdNCreMqiwQIYhAFGgw0NDAyNTgyMTExOTgiDHNu3nVBhIj8pC0%2BmSroA5iNNJd2sDQ4ixBETghRXpn7k4Y876xHu8goCD20SAo23ATg0TO71fPRa2NasmbPLTjuzvlt5ApXluKlgJQswBA8WObE3BMkaFDjjbDgSrVSjA9vTV8v18rUPW625hmGh2pMa6W3W2FyYopzgH8Fes4fi29oh4RSO0ajjAlz4Y5Hx9k4KZis3fqWdabLx4GaAZciLsL9aSmCStpouB0blwDHs7AuIRfUpOxqtlq3%2Bj4c9chyYHAZaw4ZURq68YvJVKy5EoKRlGYXTQkNUriAZCzuDuFDXYsSn9JSCSEsXr2aZrWSSj40y25fVe06aXtkkP3DtjcpuRRndo0abH0coZ1sSmzTJhHaeijIgDcHvHhu%2BoLefxYE6cKKceF9%2Be36YmeqFgbf7HXp0fTloPe4MXEmLbDeVK2xyTYrSkXa9pRB0CD7vkvmbWxoAR25fe35dJJtPQbBuQC%2FzEz0WX1%2FabGkh4vb%2FH51RzFimQi3eGrGGZ1gdfYxatqDR7oOzXePutDmi0jOxqm0hN1u6cRTqz473Ljmz0Exhc%2B0Rv%2FoI2o6n%2BC69LHybpvLN%2F84tsozc%2B74s3otIQczrTX8KPJME%2B0e%2BnBNOTWOzkpTpNwnlVxmmC15r%2FzXEd3vXA%2FFVb6xGJbC9rHAFTU3MJj8z78GOrUCc5T%2FvdRt9WdayL7twA5WmzuwvZx1biD2M4qdy5MG4NW2NYISaKcj8X9EZTS5AdP7dMumwy7mPcolFUyQpRwzQv97%2BYn2AQ6NlgrBOqnL1UFvMZbwLDv5%2F3dV4PMw7YA3XR%2FbIJqXS7W%2BFaoL1pTpTBvtUnScYi2s%2BgrJ1NI8x%2BFsll7nmvFAkMsn0gF09GRXzAr7omRC2OMnTe00aQ%2BYw%2FDDbK%2BGXAjP8A%2BN3kbbOlMaq%2FAfGx%2BrVwol4xg3yjYq7hHW9WqeTwLJdGxjuybSL%2FT6Wg61qT7nBkACryh4i1oOWPo%2FkMEDKOOC2a7gnJeFFr5zPB01MtgrKP%2FabOGV0w5nw8hvMqh1lUt8Hfz1rbAwl%2BAzHPTGUQzdZ7ylL1TpPlJjh2MnZcf9nCMwu%2BxpWptk0Evm&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWNALPFV7HCBVHNBP%2F20250407%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20250407T165350Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=5e76c45197e6186f79b3139f437b9e25e1ffd49fb685e64ca8696112a633a7dd

(intense music)

- [Narrator] Billions of years ago, our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus, may have had oceans and rivers, life-giving habitats, like the ones that graced the early Earth.

(dramatic music)

(thunder rumbling)

Today, it's burned-out surface is a global fossil of volcanic destruction.

(lava sloshing)

Concealed beneath a dense toxic atmosphere.

(wind whooshing)
(soft dramatic music)

Scientists are now unveiling daring new strategies to explore its tortured landscapes, to search for clues from a time when the planet was alive.

How did Venus descend into this hellish state?

And how did our planet, Earth, manage to survive?

(mysterious music)

(thunder rumbling)
(lightning clapping)

(slow music)

At the surface, the air is 95% carbon dioxide.

So dense, it's more like an ocean than an atmosphere.

And it's hot enough to melt lead.

Overhead, thick clouds of sulfuric acid.

(eerie music)
(thunder rumbling)

No spacecraft has lasted longer than two hours on Venus.

(lightning clapping)

All we have seen close up, a few images transmitted by the Soviet Venera landers back in the 1970s.

(mystical music)

Radar images from the Magellan Mission in the '90s have stoked our desire for more.

- [Speaker 1] We think of it as this sort of ugly, forbidding, scary place, because we've seen these few Russian lander images of these sort of eroded rocks and crushing atmosphere.

But when you look at the Magellan imagery and you see this bewildering array of volcanic forms and flows and bizarre and interesting canyons and valleys and channels that have been carved by liquid lava and volcanoes of different sizes and shapes, I think the surface of Venus is probably really beautiful.

(mystical music)
(thunder rumbling)

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Thousands of years ago, Asian skywatchers saw Venus as two separate stars.

(speaking in foreign language)

the Beginner of Brightness in the morning.

And (speaking in foreign language) the Exalted Western One in the evening.

- [Speaker 1] It's always sort of flirting with the edges of night.

You'll never see Venus at midnight up high in the sky.

It's always just in the edges of dawn and dusk.

- [Narrator] Sumerian priests saw it as one, Inanna, goddess of sex, fertility, physical beauty, and attraction.

(woman singing in foreign language)

Inanna became Aphrodite to the Greeks.

Born from the foam of the sea, protector of those who sail, the Hellenic goddess of love beckoned us to venture into the unknown.

(dramatic music)

Roman leaders declared April the month of Venus throughout the empire.

During the festival of Veneralia, Romans honored purity and piety and affairs of the heart.

Across the Atlantic, Venus was seen as the little brother of the sun.

- [Speaker 1] In a way, the most astute Venus observers were the Mesoamericans, the Aztecs, the Maya, the Toltecs.

For those cultures, Venus was this male macho warrior with a spear going down into the underworld and doing battle against the enemies of humanity.