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Russian Scientist Claims Signs of Life Spotted On Venus
flergum writes "Leonid Ksanfomaliti, an astronomer based at the Space Research Institute of Russia's Academy of Sciences, analyzed photographs taken by a Russian landing probe during 1982 and claims to have found signs of life. Ksanfomaliti says the Russian photographs depict objects resembling a 'disk,' a 'black flap' and a 'scorpion.'"
*clicks on article* ...Hmm, ok, no pictures here.
*googles it* http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2090556/Life-Venus-Russian-scientist-claims-seen-scorpion-probe-photographs.html?ito=feeds-newsxml.
Yea... I'm no astrocryptozoologist, but that doesn't look like life to me.
Er, sorry. Try this newer page:
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm
Ydco co
Mirage. Or easily explained by the distortion of a lens by heat in desert conditions - this one a scathing 1k F.
I doubt it. You need temperature variations in order to get this effect (hot ground, colder atmosphere) which is not going to happen on Venus, seeing as most of the heat and light is absorbed in the atmosphere before it touches the ground. You won't even get diurnal temperature variations, as the thermal capacity of the dense armosphere is quite significant, and finally, the convection will smooth out any local temperature inequalities. You simply never get the optical interface necessary for a mirage.
Ezekiel 23:20
Scratch that, I just read some lengthy forums that say that's a shattered lens cap. Here's another panorama with said lens cap pieces. The Daily Mail offers this strange image as evidence ... but that's The Daily Mail so take it with a grain of salt. If that is what all the fuss is about, I'm a little angry I just wasted this much time. Personally I'd assume my camera is experiencing an anomaly due to it being 867 degrees Fahrenheit outside ...
My work here is dung.
I think you're a bit confused about typographical conventions around representation of Celsius. This is a quick and illuminating read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius#Name_and_symbol_typesetting
Don't forget this is a 4th hand translated account we are getting here through the notoriously sensationalist media. There was probably a 30 page report in which the scientist outlined which optical effects could most likely result in such an effect on the image through camera error or heat distortion, and then a sentence like "there is a small possibility that the objects were moving of their own volition" which then got grabbed up and made the focus of a story. If you read something stupid in the media, try blaming the media first and the scientists only when you have seen 1) the evidence and 2) the actual conclusions of the scientist in their own words.
Careers can be ruined by this sort of thing, ignorant journalists and skeptical armchair scientists.