Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Venus

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ON June 5 and 6, the planet Venus passes between the earth and the sun producing a silhouette that few alive today will likely see again. It won’t happen again until 2117.

“Earth and Venus are similar distances from the sun, are made of the same basic materials, and are almost perfect twins in terms of size.

“Yet the two planets are wrapped in stunningly dissimilar blankets of air. Venus’s atmosphere is almost 100 times more massive than Earth’s and consists mainly of CO2, a greenhouse gas that raises the surface temperature to almost 900°F. Clouds of sulfuric acid tower 14 miles high and whip around the planet as fast as 220 mph. A human being transported to this hellish environment would be crushed, suffocate, desiccate, and possibly ignite.

“For the most part, planetary scientists have no idea how Venus turned out this way.
Our models and tools cannot fully explain Venus, which means we lack the tools for understanding our own planet…

Read more http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/04jun_arcofvenus/

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Image from http://www.space.com/15973-venus-transit-pictures-2012-gallery.html

Against The Hellfire, Credit: NASA / SDO. The Solar Dynamics Observatory’s AIA 304 camera delivered this amazing image of Venus over the active Sun during the first few hours of the Venus Transit.

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Comments

  3. kuhnkat says

    “Our models and tools cannot fully explain Venus, which means we lack the tools for understanding our own planet…”

    Refreshing honesty.

  4. spangled drongo says

    I watched it with my binoculars and welding helmet to try and spot the greenhouse effect, but no luck.

    But it was a golden moment.

  5. George B says

    a greenhouse gas that raises the surface temperature to almost 900°F.

    Uhm, no. It is the 90-100 times higher pressure that raises the surface temperature, not the CO2. Venus has nearly the same dry atmospheric adiabatic lapse rate that Earth does. At the point in Venus’ atmosphere where the pressure is the same as Earth, the temperature is within 5 degrees of Earth’s average temperature. But that point comes some 50km up! Venus’ atmosphere is much thicker than ours extending much higher above the planet. In Venus’ atmosphere you increase in temperature 10.47K per kilometer. Earth’s is 9.76K per kilometer so not much difference. For example, on Earth, it is colder at the top of Mt. Everest than it is at the surface and if we had no ocean, it would be hotter still at what is the abyssal plains.

    98% of sunlight reaching Venus is reflected as the planet has a very high albedo. Venus has practically no greenhouse effect because there is practically no warming at the surface due to sunshine. Very little sunlight reaches the surface due to the thick sulfuric acid clouds.

    It is a common misconception that Venus is hotter because of CO2. It is hotter, but because of pressure, not because of CO2.

  6. John Sayers says

    Yup – I fancied the brunette Luke.

    Didn’t Immanuel Velikovsky sort all this out?

  8. George B says

    Luke, if you replaced Earth’s atmosphere with pure CO2 and removed all the water, the surface temperature would be about 5 degrees warmer than it is now.

  9. kuhnkat says

    Chris Colose little Lukey???

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    He didn’t even know that the clouds of Venus reflect at least 60% of the energy back toward the ground!!!! Your GreenHouse effect has nothing to do with GHG’s there!!

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA