Slashdot Mirror
Venusian Climate May Have Been Habitable
tqft writes "Venus - life signs maybe - 'The hellish climate of Venus may have arisen far more recently than previously supposed, suggests new research. If so, pleasant Earth-like conditions probably persisted for two billion years after the planet's birth - plenty of time for life to have developed.' Mars is for wimps afraid of a real hot acid drenched challenge."
After all, isn't that where women originated from?
-psy
Of COURSE Venus was inhabitable, until the Republicans and their Big Business Allies destroyed the environment. They're doing to the same to Earth: beware!
Mars is for wimps
It's still better than having peanuts stuck between you teeth after eating a Snickers bar!
It was fine until an oil magnate became their President.
From the article:
Venus is virtually the same size as Earth and, on average, is our nearest neighbour. Today, its atmospheric temperatures are hot enough to melt lead and concentrated sulfuric acid continuously drizzles down from thick sulphurous clouds that completely block out the Sun.
Sounds like human life originated on Venus, we totally fucked it up, and sent a "try again" genetic seeding material package to Earth. Seems we didn't learn much.....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Venus would still be inhabitable except the feel good Democrats and their big labor allies destroyed the enviorment. They are doing the same to Earth: beware!
I know it is all the rage the pick on republicans for destroying the environment, but the democrats only say they are better. Look at their actions, and you will find (just like the rebpulicans) that they don't match their words. Often the desire to fight with the repblicans (who in turn desire to fight back) means that if the other wants to do something the other promised to do, they vote it down just because the other party started it.
Which is why I prefer to vote for a third party.
I was recently reading Ben Bova's "Venus" and was thinking about the ability of humanity to live in the upper reaches of Venus's atmosphere. Anyone seen anything on this?
I think a health spa would do very well their.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
We have no real evidence of this... I don't think it is fair to rule out any chance of finding life in extreme places.
Venus may be our hell, but isn't it possible that somewhere in the universe, organisims exist that would thrive there?
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Get off my lawn.
If life ever arose on Venus, it is still going to be there. Simply raising the temperature 100K until it is hot enough to melt lead and bathing the entire planet in acid isn't enough to wipe out all life. There are going to be extremophiles all over. And the best thing is that we probably don't have to worry much about about contamination when we're studying it.
More generally, if this analysis is right, it means that the "habitable zone" for planets around other stars may be much wider than has been assumed, since Venus had been thought to be far outside it.
Damn, if this is right, I guess they'll have to expand the HABSTAR database some. Isn't that terrible? :-)
I planted that hot dog tree on Mars.
A universe without hot dogs is something I cannot imagine.
The temperature limit for life on earth was only recently extended... to a whole 113 C, if memory serves. This is a long way from Venusian levels, and hardly offers hope for anything living on the surface. (How life could get minerals and other essentials high in the atmosphere, where temperatures are quite habitable, is a question that advocates of airborne life need to answer.)
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
No, this doesn't have anything to do with "global warming". The Sun's output is slowly increasing as it ages. Eventually this will tip the Earth into thermal runaway. The good news is that homo sapiens will be long gone by the time it happens.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
We can still send our DNA to Mars. But after the third try we might run out of Class-M Planets in our Solarsystem. Jupiter as next shot might be waaay too heavy for us.
But, hey, we could still build underwater cities (Man! Afaik we were promised them anyway by 2000) on Europas Oceans and try again (the Jupiter moon, folks, the continental jokes are exhausted!).
There MUST be a climate cold enough to stand greenhousegases.
cu,
Lispy
ahem monoliths. Calling them obelisks REALLY
pisses them off.
...and so Venus may have a lithosphere (outer layer of solid rock) twice as thick as Earth's. It's a tougher skin so it's less likely to crack.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
This idea that Earth is "seeded" from afar is a neat science fiction concept, but there are a lot of ham-fisted realizations such as the insufferable Battlestar Galactica among others.