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Venus Probe Returns First Images
The BBC reports on the first images returned from Venus by the EU probe. From the article: "They show the hothouse planet's south pole from a distance of 206,452km. Mission scientists are already intrigued by a dark 'vortex' feature which can be clearly seen in one image. Venus Express will orbit the planet for about 500 Earth days to study its atmosphere, which is thought to have undergone runaway greenhouse warming." They're offering some high-rez images of the planet at the ESA website.
I don't really have anything intelligent to say. But i hope others who don't either will give me the peace and just say whoa, instead of coming with stupid puns, because these are truly cool pictures. so, don't write before you view. ESA has finally made something which isn't just cool, but looks cool too, and i hope they get the attention they deserve, because their funding needs it badly. anyway, cheers and enjoy the pics, i hope this'll still be the first post
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Oh i dunno.. maybe the avergae temperature being on avg. 890F, for example?
Sending a probe to Venus ... $xx million dollars
... $x million dollars
... Priceless.
Getting back hi-res pictures of Venus under massive global warming
Realizing that this is what Earth might look at if we continue ignoring Global Warming
For everything else, there's Big Oil PetroldollarCard.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If you're interested in science as anything more than a few sound bites to ooh and ahh at then... ...you don't get your 'science' at the BBC.
(I finished your sentence for you.)
Oh i dunno.. maybe the avergae temperature being on avg. 890F, for example?
Personally, I think it was a severe lack of Mint Juleps and Long Island Iced Teas.
That and having all one's wooden stir sticks light on fire.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
>> Venus Express science team members say they want to know how these vortices remain stable and where they get their energy from.
If only ET would answer the phone, we could call them & ask which direction the water turns when they flush the toilet.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Yes the clarification was necessary, each planet has its own definition of a day (that is, a complete rotation about its axis).
A single day on Venus takes 243 of our days.
liqbase
The parent post has been brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
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Just a minor correction - but the European Space Agency is not a part of the EU - and countries outside the EU participate as well.
This is what happens when Piracy drops to zero. See RIAA? Se what you are trying to do? You are trying to KILL US ALL!
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
But I really wish ESA would adopt a more NASA-like policy for images and other probe data. I hold NASA in much higher esteem than ESA - not because of some sense of patriotism (hey, I live in Europe), but because with them people like me can more often than not actually get to see the results and access the raw data (and be able to use it for basically whatever purpose I see fit as well). ESA OTOH has a tendency to release only a few selected images, with lots of usage restrictions...
Yes the clarification was necessary, each planet has its own definition of a day (that is, a complete rotation about its axis).
Well then now I am confused. The last sentence of the article asks why the Earth and Venus evolved so differently over the last 4.6 billion years. Are they talking Earth years or Venus years? They didn't specify. Or do you only have to do it once, like the trademark symbol? You know, just use it at the first instance and it's implied for the rest. Is that how it works?
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
It's Venus after all -- and according to the book, that's where women are originally from.
The runaway global warming was probably caused by all their yaps going nonstop, a stream of hot air about "doing the dishes," "mowing the lawn," and "come look at this cute house I built in 'The Sims.'"
And, yeah, that dark vortex? That costs $15.99 a month, billed to your credit card under the name "OMFGSONOTPR0N.COM"
Thankfully my wife doesn't read slashdot or I could so get my ass...
Oh dear God -- CLOSE, CLOSE, CLOSE!!!
Otherwise, I was going to destroy the Earth.
It's blocking my view of Venus.
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
I just hope it doesn't return to Earth and go berzerk. Lee Majors is looking a little long in the tooth to do anything about it these days.
Breakfast served all day!
Notice, I call the physical word, not the mental exercise, puny. Puns are called puny by those that can't make them...
~Joseph T. Shipley
Perhaps there should be a way to sort comments into puns and useful comments. They are a respectable form of humor which can serve to entertain and educate. Granted they do tend to get in the way of relevant comments sometimes.
I know this is off-topic but your comment got me thinking...
Did they decide to stop uploading the high frequency components of those jpegs or something?
It's definitely an interesting time to be alive...
It's a direct result of the Great Pirate Migration that coincides with the beginning of our last ice age. The pirates of Venus were able to build a flying "ship" that they used to raid the next planet out from the sun. The Venutian government at the time was glad to see them go. Parlaimentary Spokesbabe Eep-ork-O'p said "Take your pirate asses off of Venus and don't come back. We don't need you guys after all." She later was quoted as saying "That was a damn silly thing to say" just before she evaporated in a puff of super-heated Venutian protoplasm.
We earthlings, the lucky recipients of this influx of pirates, have, until recently, enjoyed a relatively mild climate as a result and have chortled under our breath as we've watched our Venutian neighbors fry to a crisp.
man, I feel like mold.
/sarcasm on :0
/sarcasm off
Lets keep burning stuff like oil, and coal, and once that gone lets start chemically freeing carbon from limestone. Im sure at some point. With enough methane added in the mix we too can be like VENUS!
Yay,.
I propose we let our cars all idle..even when we are home! Hey..get involved! Its for America!
The ones that take core samples might be more useful
I'd have a lot more respect for that type of fanatic if they'd just practice what they preach.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
..our percentage of pirates to the overall population and looks what's happening now. We have global warming and not one but two George Bush's in charge of things.
Clearly, you have been touched by His noodley appendage.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
The US satellites from the 70s took pictures from the North Pole, not the South Pole. And this mission is not just to take pictures, but also to find out more about Venus (yes, I have to agree with you, they shouldn't waste time researching a burning hot planet that we anyway can't settle on).
Honesty may be the best policy, but by process of elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
it's our tax euros being spent, but without anything like the sense of obligation to the taxpayers that there ought to be
No taxation without representation! Let history repeat itself!
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
That polar vortex is the Venusian greenhouse gas factory. They had a bit of a mad scientist problem, and one mad scientist finally "showed them all!"
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Tom Cruise, is that you?
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Maybe I'm being tedious, but I don't agree with comparing Venus to the Earth. The Earth is a complex system of oceans, atmosphere, plant, and animal life. Venus never had the kind of feedback loops that the Earth has. Venus is an example of how a planet that never developed a complex ecology would develop with an excess of CO2. Don't get me wrong. Venus is as much an example of the Greenhouse effect of CO2 as anything, but the Venusian skys weren't polluted by to many cars.
NASA is publicly funded... ESA is funded by various governments
Sorry, you're going to have to explain the difference there. NASA is funded by a single government and so has a duty to the public whose money it receives, while ESA is funded by a number of governments, and so doesn't?
I can't say that I really see the difference...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Not to mention Venus air is 90 times denser than Earth's and is 96.5% CO2 compared to Earth's 0.033%. That's a whole lotta SUV action, baby!
I'm too old to worry or care anymore. Lay it on me, man.
Not very "hi-res" if you ask me..... whats with the pixel issue ???? 161k ...my Razor phone takes better pictures......although
i'd have to throw it ...way out there to get some pics....
I know i'm going to get a mod hit with this one but its worth it......
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
Wow, they found an ozone hole on Venus too? ;)
Oh well, what the hell...
Looks a lot like a party here on earth.
Computational Chemistry products and services.
Images available at www.goatse.cx.
I think the pictures are awesome. I've always enjoyed space sciences, and all the neat stuff coming from long-distance probes and satellites is great.
Kinda puts things in perspective when you see a vortex that appears to be covering half a planet...
A Passionate Independent Musician
Actually, numerous people have put significant thought into how to terraform venus. Clearly it's not as simple a job as Mars, but it's not necessarily impossible, except with today's technology of course. Also, the more understanding we have of other planets in our system, the more we learn about planets in general, which will assist our understanding of the cosmos, which has repeatedly turned out to be relevant back here at home on Earth.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The name was changed to Urectum in 2620 because of all of the Uranus jokes...
It cant possibly be that Venus is 23 million miles closer to the sun. It cant be that Venus is 25% closer to the Sun than the Earth. Has to be the carbon dioxide. After all there can be only one cause for any effect.
!! You just reconciled the creation myth!!
...that's 3,360,000 Earth years old...
:'(
The Earth is 6,000 years old...just which 'year' wasn't explicity stated...so if we use Xena
oh wait, that still a lil short
Well, let's see
Now, if distance to the Sun is all there is to explain it, someone messed up really bad with our basic knowledge of the Solar System, for Venus is the hottest inner planet and should obviously be the closest to the Sun. No way it could be about twice further from it than Mercury.
Also, could you please enlighten us how can it be that the temperature difference between night and day on Venus is so small in spite of the rotation period being about 243 Earth days? wouldn't ~4 Earth-months worth of night be enough to cool that side of the planet? after all, Mercury's day is almost 4 timers shorter than Venus' and the max. temperature is close, but the min temperature on Mercury is low enough for high Tc superconductivity.
Damn straight. On the other hand, it's worth pointing out that even the earliest aircraft were generally good for more than one trip... the Wright brothers managed quite a few hops in Kitty Hawk. Early spacecraft (being designed by a gov't committee) did not have this characteristic.
Isn't it interesting, though, that the earliest private spacecraft have all had the characteristic of being reusable? Oh, wait... that was a condition of the Ansari X-Prize competition, wasn't it?
Liberty in our Lifetime
True all images are doctored, but the ESA tends to go overboard with these split views, perspective views, and computer modelled views without ever showing what the original view looked like.
You've got to be a true red Republican to deny the greenhouse effect on Venus.
If you do the math, since temperature goes as the 1/4 power of the recieved radiation and the recieved radiation goes as the square of the distance, with all else being equal 25% closer gets you about 15% hotter. In other words without a greenhouse effect venus would be about 45C hotter than earth.
If you put the Earth at the location of Venus, the oceans wouldn't boil. Not immediately at least. What would happen is that the evaporation rate would increase which would put more water vapor in the air. Since water vapor is a greenhouse gas that would increase the temperature which would evaporate more water. That's an example of positive feedback. Eventually it would get hot enough for the oceans to boil.
Without the oceans to absorb CO2 and without the life forms in the ocean which take CO2 and turn it into rocks, the CO2 released in volcanos (not to mention the forests catching on fire) stays in the atmosphere where it adds further to the greenhouse effect.
The CO2 and all the water vapor combine to form carbonic acid which increases the weathering of carbonate rocks releasing still more CO2. Meanwhile UV radiation (sunlight) in the upper atmosphere dissociates the water vapor into oxygen and hydrogen. Because it is light, the hydrogen escapes into space. The oxygen oxidizes any unoxidized materials on the surface. If any of those materials contain accessable carbon, you've just released more CO2 and increased the greenhouse effect.
Plate tectonics continues on for a while releasing more CO2 until the point where the water bearing minerals that enable plate tectonics on the Earth have disappeared. Plate tectonics stops. At this point you've got... you guessed it... Venus. Not that you'd be caring. You died long before the oceans started boiling.
This is what would absolutely happen to the Earth if we were to raise its temperature by 45C. What we don't know is where the dividing line is. Maybe it's 25C. Maybe it's 5C. And so we've decided to raise the temperature by 3C in the next 100 years or so.
The main difference between the Earth and Venus isn't the temperature. It's where the CO2 is. In Venus, it's in the atmosphere. On Earth, it's in the rocks. Pour some vinegar on some limestone if you don't think it can come out again. The oceans are already becoming acidic enough to cause difficulties for some shell building organisms....
Support SETI@home
Since the planet isn't due to be renamed for another 400 or so years, can we just start burying Uranus joke crackers as an interim measure?
bring forth the "send a probe to uranus" lame jokes...
I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
Does this mean that ninjas come from Mars? Do we have an interplanetary war taking place here on Earth? Can I enlist on the Martian Ninja side? Will I get a sword and a ray-gun?
I don't care what youre doing so much as the idiotic way you're doing it.
Everyone but you, apparently.
Sleep is futile.
now, taking a core sample from orbit, that i'd like to see.
Bring on the humour NASA and ESA!
Venus has no "days" or "nights", at least not any perceivable by human beings. If you were standing anywhere on the surface of Venus (ignore for a moment a few minor environmental complications that would make such a tad unpleasant), all you would see was a very murky and very dark twilight with no discernable light-source other than perhaps a very very faint glow from all directions. It would look like this all the time, no matter what time of the "day" or what day of the "year."
Raleigh scattering through Venus' incredibly thick and saturated atmosphere is so significant that no visible light (detectable to the human eye) makes it through without becoming completely diffuse.
From the article: "Venus Express science team members say they want to know how these vortices remain stable..."
Hmmm... If they are stable, and if they can get a temperature reading, and it's low enough, they may be able to send a craft to the surface that'll last longer than an hour.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
No, no, silly. We're talking about Venus, not Uranus.
There you go again trying to argue logic in a forum* within which it is not regarded as a strong defense. Common problem, often frustratingly hard for the logically minded to come to terms with. Understand that perception is more important than logic and reality is as observed in political debate. Of course in its detatched ignorarance the planet will ignore all that, but then you just have to redifine reality again and the pesky problems once again go away.
/.
* ie head-in-the-sands, not
Solution: ?
Escalading transport costs help send the message I guess.
But I'm glad I'm not a Polar Bear..
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Sorry, I'm a Democrat and a self-proclaimed tree hugger. I also have a degree in Astrophysics. Got one of those?
Sort of. If you define a day as how long it takes a particular star that is NOT the sun to return to the same place in the sky (ie how long it takes the planet to rotate), then Venus's day is 243 Earth days long.
If you define a day as, say, the time between two sunrises, ie how long it takes the sun to return to the same place in the sky, then Venus' day is (-0.9)-1 = -1.9 days per year according to Fuller's law. -1.9 days/year means that the sun rises in the west. Venus' year is 225 days so it's sunrise to sunrise day is about 118.4 Earth days long.
Maybe Venus' 300 mph winds have something to do with pushing the heat around?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.