Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: chrisg2001
Actually, it is supposedly hotter on the surface of Venus (400-740k) than on Mercury (90-700k).

Kinda makes you wonder what you could do with Venus if you could introduce some kind of fungus/bacteria into its upper atomsphere that would help re-entrain some of that carbon.

34 posted on 10/18/2005 10:58:39 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be. -El Neil)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]


To: Dead Corpse

Lack of water would be the problem.

We're really lucky to have our plants here. Though it's thought that they might have near destroyed the planet's life at least once (1: by almost freezing it solid permanently when they wiped out our atmopheric methane (a heavy greenhouse gas) by producing free oxygen, and 2: just by introducing so much of the dealdly oxygen molecule in the atmosphere when other life wasn't adapted to it).


36 posted on 10/18/2005 11:03:15 AM PDT by chrisg2001
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies ]

To: Dead Corpse

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


43 posted on 10/18/2005 11:16:57 AM PDT by tomjohn77
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies ]

To: Dead Corpse

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).


50 posted on 10/18/2005 11:30:54 AM PDT by Arthalion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson