Was Venus habitable in the past?

[Ivan Seeking]

The hellish climate of Venus may have arisen far more recently than previously supposed, suggests new research. If so, pleasant Earth-like conditions probably persisted for two billion years after the planet's birth - plenty of time for life to have developed

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994136

 

[The Grimmus]

venus has a lot of electrical storms right? Could that spark life now

 

[phi1978]

Originally posted by The Grimmus
venus has a lot of electrical storms right? Could that spark life now

Not unless there's any life that can survive 700F++ temperatures...

More to the point, is there anything at all that could reverse Venus's runaway greenhouse effect?

 

[LURCH]

Originally posted by phi1978
Not unless there's any life that can survive 700F++ temperatures...

More to the point, is there anything at all that could reverse Venus's runaway greenhouse effect?

I've been thinking about that, and it seems possible. You can see how that greenhouse effect has covered the Venusion sky with a white, highly reflective cloud layer, right? This cloud cover is sausing the heat to be trapped, which is, in turn, causing more carbon to be released from the rocks. But this same cloud layer is also blocking sunlight from getting in, actually keeping heat out of the system. It's just that under current conditions very little heat is needed to perpetuate the greenhouse effect. Nevertheless, some energy input is still required.

If at some point the cloud cover becomes so thick that the amount of heat being allowed into the system is not adequate to sustain the runaway effect, temperatures could drop rather drastically (in geological terms). It would be a lot like a nuclear winter.

 

[Artman]

Originally posted by phi1978
Not unless there's any life that can survive 700F++ temperatures...

Also the acid in the atmosphere.

 

[Phobos]

Originally posted by phi1978
more to the point, is there anything at all that could reverse Venus's runaway greenhouse effect?

Carl Sagan discussed this a bit in his book "Pale Blue Dot". In short, the answer is no...or at least not without causing a lot of havoc to the planet (e.g., bombarding it with many huge asteroids to blow off much of the atmosphere).

I recommend reading the book...but if I find the time, I'll try to post a summary of the considerations.

 

[Phobos]

Thanks for the link, Ivan. It will be interesting to see how this idea is received.

 

[blu3man]

forgive me for bluntness and inspit of how inteligent NASA officals are how could you parachute a prob onto venus with all that "acid and 700++" temperature i know there very resourceful i just highly doubt a material such as that exsists just thought id throw something that poped out in my mind

Thx

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by blu3man
forgive me for bluntness and inspit of how inteligent NASA officals are how could you parachute a prob onto venus with all that "acid and 700++" temperature i know there very resourceful i just highly doubt a material such as that exsists just thought id throw something that poped out in my mind

Thx

I don't know about NASA, but the Russians put not one but two landers on Venus, back in the 1980s (Venera 13 and Venera 14). They used parachutes to slow their descent.

Check out this link (and more by googling on "Venera lander"):
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1981-106D

 

[blu3man]

All I am saying is use your brain i don't care what the government is telling you , do you honestly think in the 80's or even now a fabric parachute could withstand that to land something in one peace just sends up red flags in my mind that maybe it isn't nearly as bad as they say

 

[Andre]

I think the basic thread her was on the enigmatic features of Venus. One of my favorite mysteries.

That article is a nice hypothesis about Venus climate and the alleged wet greenhouse, but only climate.

Could greenhouse effect explain an almost uniform temperature on poles and equator, back side and front side of the planet of about 730K?

There are many curious things on the surface of Venus (exceptional long thin lava flows, crab and dome volcanoes, heat cracks or grabens?) with no clear explanations.

Then we have the rotation stop, explaned by gravity interaction between the atmosphere and the sun(Correia et al) but not sufficient enough to explain the initial stage and dependent on the emerging time of the current atmosphere.

Working on the explanation of all the strange features with only one hypothesis.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Could greenhouse effect explain an almost uniform temperature on poles and equator, back side and front side of the planet of about 730K?

How about if you included the facts about Venus' very curious rotation and its axial tilt.

 

[Andre]

Exactly, the focal point of the mysteries.

It may be good starting here:

http://physicsweb.org/article/news/5/6/6

http://astro.oal.ul.pt/~acorreia/cvpubs/venus1.pdf
http://astro.oal.ul.pt/~acorreia/cvpubs/venus2.pdf