Is Venus in retrograde because life is whack right now?

No. While initial rotation of Venus during primordial times was probably fast and prograde, Venus has been in its present configuration of slow retrograde motion within the age of the Solar System, possibly during the first billion years (Correia, 2003; bit.ly/spinofvenus). It is believed that the present motion of Venus is a steady state between gravitational tides and thermally driven atmospheric tides, as well as tidal dissipation effects due to proximity to the Sun (Correia, 2010; bit.ly/tidalevol).

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.