Posted on 10/18/2005 10:29:27 AM PDT by Dr._Joseph_Warren
Venus Express set for liftoff
Venus Express, the European Space Agency's first mission to explore Earth's closest neighbour, will be launched next Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The ESA gave the prospective launch time as 0443 GMT.
The 1.27-tonne unmanned spacecraft, which will be taken aloft by a Russian-made Soyuz-Fregat rocket, is expected to arrive at Venus on April 6.
Venus Express, equipped with seven instruments, is intended to map the Venusian surface and weather system, looking at temperature variation, cloud formations, wind speeds and gas composition.
Its main goal is to help understand why Venus fell prey to runaway global warming.
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is similar in size, mass and age to Earth, but the two planets are otherwise quite different.
The so-called Morning Star has clouds of suffocating gas driven by hurricane-force winds, as well as a surface pressure and temperature high enough to crush and melt steel.
Venus Express is a sister to Mars Express, an orbiter that is now circling the Red Planet.
Further information is available on (www.esa.int).
Hydrogen sulfide and Carbon Dioxide. Re-entrain the carbon. Free up the sulfur. Let nature take it's course.
What's a mere 30,000,000 miles between friends??
p.s. Just because Venus has been scorched by the sun for millions of years doesn't mean it's not all BUSH'S FAULT!!
Since almost everybody is just talking over their head now I will clarify. Venuses distance from the sun would have made it habitat able if it had the same build up of the atmosphere as the earth. The average temperature on earth is 13 Celsius and the average temperature on Venus would have been 40 Celsius. Because of the atmosphere density of Venus heat gets trapped and global warming occurs. So now the temperature is 500 Celsius
> Are there any realistic connection or lessons that can be derived about Earth from studying Venus' environment?
I guess I'd say that the real worry about any climate changes are the positive feedback loops. There are positive feedback loops present on earth and venus's climates that can act to tip things in a catastrophic direction, either way, cold or hot. There are also negative feedback loops that can drive stuff more towards stability.
Some scientists belive that such events may have happened in earth's early history as the atmosphere's basic composition was undergoing large scale changes (meaning really large scale).
The presence of these feedback terms makes prediction of global termperature a lot more difficult than otherwise - if it were just a straight matter of the magnitude of the greenhouse effect being linearly dependent upon how much Co2 is present in the atmosphere, we could just extrapolate current emissions forward and know how much to worry or not worry. But instead, estimates might be wildly pessimistic or optimistic because not enough is known about the parameters of the feedback terms.
Some of those can probably be observed on other planets, though some are biological in nature and so only happed here as far as we know. Hopefully the triggers for these positive loops getting out of control are far away from current conditions, and chances are they are, but it would certainly be nice to know more.
With an average temp of 40C, there would still likely be places you wouldn't want to live. You'd want to stay away from the equitorial and temperate regions, but the poles would probably be somewhat pleasant.
It was all those Venusians and their nasty fossil-fuel-burning flying SUVs.
Ding Ding Ding Ding!! We have a winner. Venus is not within the range of what scientist believe life could be maintainable and possible.. Earth and Mars are the only 2 that they believe might... with an outside chance on Europa in the waters, if they are warmed beneath by geothermal activity.
Just spit balling here, but would it be possible to splice genes from the algae that grows in the Yellowstone hot springs with blue-green oceanic algae and seed the Venusian atmosphere? A few hundred years, and after the sulfuric acid rain stops and the percentage of O2 increases far enough, we could build public housing...
Actually, nobody here has yet mentioned the biggest reason why Venus is overheated, and why terraforming would never work. Venus is practically tide locked to the Sun. A year on Venus is 224 Earth-days long. A DAY on Venus is 243 Earth-days long. This means one day lasts longer than one year. Without actually doing the math, this also means that if you watched the sun rise on one Venusian horizon, it would take almost 13 Earth-years for it to trek across the sky and set on the other horizon. Since its poles have no appreciable tilt and the planet has no seasons, the surface essentially superheated.
Venus is actually located within the band of our solar system that could, theoretically, support human life. If we could thin out the atmosphere and speed up its spin rate, Venus could eventually have large habitable zones with shirtsleeve weather at the poles (the equator would be a vast desert). Since the mechanics of changing the rotational rate of a planet are so far beyond us that even thinking about it is laughable, we realistically have to conclude that it will never be populated.
Oh, and one other scientific oddity. Venus isn't perfectly tide locked with the Sun, but it IS tide locked with the EARTH. Our gravity doesn't effect the planet enough to tide lock it, so most scientists write it off as coincidence. We can't see it through the clouds, but whenever we look at Venus, the same side of the planet is facing us. (Personally, I think there's a reason for that...both the odd rotation of Venus and the formation of our own tide locked moon seem to have resulted from huge impacts. My suspicion is that the impacts occurred simultaneously, or that Venus may have been involved with the impact itself).
Proving once again that global warming is caused by the Sun.
As for modifying the loop of a long period comet... GCNR on a probe. when the comet comes back down the gravity well, have the rocket start converting ice to propellent and applying thrust. All it needs to do is nudge it into place. From a few million miles out, it shouldn't take a lot.
Noooo, why would that have anything to do with it?
LOL! I missed that in the title. That's a good one.
Heck, even a mindless Liberal/Democrat will blame " Globle Warming " on the sun on the Republicans, " evil " corporations, SUV owners and Bush.
Sounds like a friend's ex-wife.
Assuming an earthlike atmosphere and CO2 level, about 330 Kelvin / 125 Fahrenheit.
Is Venus even in the habitable zone for Sol?
Opinions vary. Most astronomers don't think so.
Halliburtondidit.
Venus is situated much closer to Earth than Mars.
"We are going to take money from you to put air conditioning on Venus" - Hillary
"I did not sleep with that woman, Venus." - Bill
"I invented planets" - Al Gore
"We want to know why the Bush administration never sent blacks to Venus. This is proof of racism." - Jesse Jackson
"Terror shall continue until all Israeli occupation of Venus ends" = Palistinian Authority (Yes they are democrats)
"We shall kill you the same way you killed us on Venus" - Islamic Jihad
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