Venus is 80 meters long — over 250 feet — and has living quarters to accommodate 12 people. Its equipment and living space, according to SWNS.com, can be controlled from seven 27-inch iMacs. The ship has a very unusual design, with a very straight bow and gently sloping stern, and a profile dominated by the horizontal lines of its waterline, windows, deck, and cabin roof.

Source: SWNS.com

Steve Jobs’ yacht at sea off Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Philippe Starck created the yacht with complete carte blanche from the founder and CEO of Apple, as he recently told Super Yacht Times. That was extremely unusual for Jobs, who was notoriously detail-oriented, but this demonstrates the respect he had for the legendary European designer.

Of course, that was simply for the major, exterior design. For the interior, Jobs had more to say. As SYT recounts, Starck and Jobs spent considerable time over those details:

“We spent just one day every six weeks, for five years, on refinements. Millimeter by millimeter. Detail by detail.”

As the photos show, the result of the collaboration between Starck and Jobs is extreme simplicity.

Starck said that “there is not a single useless item inside. … Not a single useless pillow, or a useless object. In that sense, it is the opposite of other boats. Other boats try to show off more and more. Venus is revolutionary. It is the extreme opposite.”

The sad reality, of course, is that Jobs never got to sail in the boat that he built.

Top image credit: Super Yacht Times

If you’re like me and happened to miss out on watching Venus’ transit crossing the Sun yesterday, NASA has come to rescue with an incredible ultra-HD video of the event.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft recorded images of the event and will continue studying and recording things happening on the Sun until 2015. The SDO shoots images with resolution 8 times higher than high-definition TV and transmits more than a terabyte of data each day.

The extremely rare occurrence of Venus crossing the Sun won’t happen again until 2117, so this video will have to suffice until you’re resurrected or put into suspended animation.

Watch the incredible full video below: