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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."
That title would have been so much better if it was:
"Infrared Scan Of Venus' Southern Regions Hints At Wet, Hot Past"
The melting points of most types of rock are quite a bit higher than that.
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
No, I blame the people who didn't want to burn greenhouse gases who pushed everyone to use renewable sources like "Geo-thermal" or "Venu-Thermal" energy that caused plate tectonics to grind to a halt and the outer crust to solidify and thicken which was all well and good until a few hundred million years later all of that internal Venusian heat had to go somewhere and lo and behold instant planet wide resurfacing and extreme out gassing.
The Eco-nuts of Venus were all proud of their renewable energy plan for geothermal until the fateful day the surface of the planet melted and they were all screwed. Thanks eco-nuts!!! Now there is one less habitable planet in the solar system! Too bad all of the amazon Venusian Women melted in the great planetary resurfacing 500 million years ago.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
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.
Planetary rotation and the presence of moons has nothing to do with plate tectonics. The moon's gravity isn't strong enough to move whole sections of the planet's crust. The direction of plate motion varies from place to place and over time. If it were affected by the Earth's rotation, plates would only move CCW or CW. Plate motion on Earth is powered by mantle convection - magma from the lower mantle rising towards the surface, cooling, sinking back down, heating up, rising, etc. The recycling of magma essentially drags the plates around, like a conveyor belt.
Venus has a kind of tectonic cycle, but it works much differently. Based on the presence and relative age of craters and volcanoes on the surface, Venus seems to undergo catastrophic, global volcanism every 500Ma. This massive periodic volcanism, among other things, replenishes the planet's super-thick CO2 atmosphere. Otherwise, solar winds would have long ago stripped Venus of its atmosphere, since the planet has no significant magnetosphere.
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.
For the same reason people who think for sure they'd be a part of Star Fleet if it existed very rarely join the military.
Most people who dream of flying a star ship will never go about taking up flying the planes that we DO have available to us.
Most people who cheer on the Rebels in Star Wars would never ever think of taking up arms against a hostile government.
All in all, a lot of people are dreamers rather than actual doers. As a person who still is a fan of Sci-fi - your sentiment is one that I realized myself a while back, and I've personally chosen to make an active attempt to enjoy and accept the time I live in, and the technology available to me. While fun in it's own way, if all you do is look wishfully towards a future that we'll never see (and likely won't quite materialize the way we envision it anyways), then life gets kind of boring after a while.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
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.
It's ok, I coated my granite counter top with lead to block the radiation.
It *is* being done here on Earth -- see photosynthesis. You just need a broader definition of "we".
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Right, which is why the best thing to do with all the CO2 in the atmosphere is to make it into some sort of a solid carbonate. "Clean coal" dreamers claim that just injecting CO2 under the crust will make this happen on Earth - I suspect it's more complicated, but when we're already fantasizing about teraforming, the question of sequestering CO2 somehow is probably not the decisive one. Also, re. the earlier comment about the albedo: you could achieve the same effect cheaper by putting a huge solar-powered space station into the liberation point between Venus and the sun. Then you can spread out sails to block as much sun as you need until Venus gets just the perfect amount. This would be even better than Earth, because by manipulating the shade, you could control the illumination of various regions to ensure optimal weather year round.