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New Map Hints At Venus' Wet, Volcanic Past
Matt_dk writes with this excerpt from Space Fellowship: "Venus Express has charted the first map of Venus' southern hemisphere at infrared wavelengths. The new map hints that our neighbouring world may once have been more Earth-like, with a plate tectonics system and an ocean of water. The map comprises over a thousand individual images, recorded between May 2006 and December 2007. Because Venus is covered in clouds, normal cameras cannot see the surface, but Venus Express used a particular infrared wavelength that can see through them."
but i always thought venus was a better target for terraforming
its easier to subtract out of venus' atmosphere than put in mars' atmosphere what isn't there. i didn't say EASY, i said EASIER
some sort of genetically engineered bug that sequesters all of the CO2 and H2SO4, and permanently precipitates it out, preferably leaving O2 and H2O. something that could live on top of the clouds and in them. there's a lot of energy in that atmosphere, and you're closer to the sun... which is actually good: something to work with. rather than being far from the sun and feeble with resources, like mars
again, this is in no way easy, but if we ever reach the technological acumen and sustained effort needed to terraform one of our neighbors, i really think venus is a much better target than mars. more available energy to work with, almost identical gravity profile, and the need to subtract something out of the atmosphere, rather than to somehow create what isn't there, which is a lot easier to do, logically
mars has a long and sustained following and fan base, in science fiction as well as real science, but venus is the real future of mankind's first off-world colonization (besides the moon), if we ever get to that level of sophistication to even consider the possibility
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Venus is actually quite terra-formable. It does have an atmosphere, an extremely thick one at that, which has caused its high temperature. It also has gravity closer to ours than the moon or Mars. If we could turn the CO2 into O2 and usable carbon (like for soil), we could eventually live on it. Wouldn't be easy, but probably more feasible than terra-forming Mars.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
How about bio-engineering some extremophiles to due some conversions for us? Then, when we land, we just release some extremophile-eating microbes to clean up. Then winter comes, and they all freeze to death.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
There's no need to add nitrogen. Nitrogen is only 3.5% of Venus' atmosphere, but thanks to the sheer mass of Venus' atmosphere this is still more than three times as much nitrogen as is present in Earth's atmosphere.