pogoda: Life on Venus

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

The possibility of life on Venus is a subject of interest in astrobiology due to Venus's proximity and similarities to Earth. To date, no definitive evidence has been found of past or present life there. In the early 1960s, studies conducted via spacecraft demonstrated that the current Venusian environment is extreme compared to Earth's. Studies continue to question whether life could have existed on the planet's surface before a runaway greenhouse effect took hold, and whether a relict biosphere could persist high in the modern Venusian atmosphere. With extreme surface temperatures reaching nearly 735 K (462 °C; 863 °F) and an atmospheric pressure 92 times that of Earth, the conditions on…

Evidence: 47 • authority: 72

Venus is the second planet from the Sun. Similar in size and mass to Earth, Venus has no liquid water, and its atmosphere is far thicker and denser than that of any other rocky body in the Solar System. The atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and has a thick cloud layer of sulfuric acid that spans the whole planet. At the mean surface level, the atmosphere reaches a temperature of 737 K (464 °C; 867 °F), making it the hottest planet in the solar system and also a pressure 92 times greater than Earth's at sea level, turning the lowest layer of the atmosphere into a supercritical fluid. From Earth, Venus is visible as a star-like point of light, appearing brighter than any other n…

Evidence: 36 • authority: 92

Consumption of Hydrogen by Annihilation Reactions in Ultradense Hydrogen H(0) Contributed to Form a Hot and Dry Venus.. When water vapor reacts with metals at temperatures of a few hundred kelvin, free hydrogen and metal oxides are formed. Iron is a common metal giving such reactions. Iron oxide together with a small amount of alkali metal as promoter is a good catalyst for forming ultradense hydrogen H(0) from the released hydrogen. Ultradense hydrogen is the densest form of condensed matter hydrogen. It can be formed easily at low pressure and is the densest material in the Solar System. Spontaneous and induced nuclear processes in H(0) create mesons (kaons, pions) in proton annihilation…

Evidence: 24 • authority: 72

Albedo ( al-BEE-doh; from Latin albedo 'whiteness') is the fraction of sunlight that is diffusely reflected by a body. It is measured on a scale from 0 (corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation) to 1 (corresponding to a body that reflects all incident radiation). Surface albedo is defined as the ratio of radiosity Je to the irradiance Ee (flux per unit area) received by a surface. The proportion reflected is not only determined by properties of the surface itself, but also by the spectral and angular distribution of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. These factors vary with atmospheric composition, geographic location, and time (see position of the Sun).…

Evidence: 24 • authority: 72

The greenhouse effect occurs when heat-trapping gases in a planet's atmosphere prevent the planet from losing heat to space, raising its surface temperature. Surface heating can happen from an internal heat source (as in the case of Jupiter) or come from an external source, such as a host star. In the case of Earth, the Sun emits shortwave radiation (sunlight) that passes through greenhouse gases to heat the Earth's surface. In response, the Earth's surface emits longwave radiation that is mostly absorbed by greenhouse gases, reducing the rate at which the Earth can cool off. Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth's average surface temperature would be as cold as −18 °C (−0.4 °F). This is…

Evidence: 24 • authority: 72

A supercritical fluid (SCF) is a substance at a temperature and pressure above its critical point, where distinct liquid and gas phases do not exist, but below the pressure required to compress it into a solid. It can effuse through porous solids like a gas, overcoming the mass transfer limitations that slow liquid transport through such materials. SCFs are superior to gases in their ability to dissolve materials like liquids or solids. Near the critical point, small changes in pressure or temperature result in large changes in density, allowing many properties of a supercritical fluid to be "fine-tuned". Supercritical fluids occur in the atmospheres of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, th…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The planet Venus was first observed in antiquity, and continued with telescopic observations, and then by visiting spacecraft. Spacecraft have performed multiple flybys, orbits, and landings on the planet, including balloon probes that floated in its atmosphere. Study of the planet is aided by its relatively close proximity to the Earth, but the surface of Venus is obscured by an atmosphere opaque to visible light.

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The atmosphere of Earth consists of a layer of mixed gas (commonly referred to as air) that is retained by gravity, surrounding the Earth's surface. It contains variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates that create weather features such as clouds and hazes. The atmosphere serves as a protective buffer between the Earth's surface and outer space. It shields the surface from most meteoroids and ultraviolet solar radiation, reduces diurnal temperature variation – the temperature extremes between day and night – and keeps it warm through heat retention via the greenhouse effect. The atmosphere redistributes heat and moisture among different regions via air currents, and provide…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The terraforming of Venus is the hypothetical planetary engineering procedure that would transform Venus from a planet hostile to life to one that could sustainably host humans and other lifeforms free of protection or mediation. Necessary adjustments to the existing environment of Venus to support human life would require a reduction of the planet's surface temperature and a substantial elimination of the planet's dense atmosphere. At 737 K (464 °C; 867 °F), the surface of Venus is above the melting point of lead. Meanwhile, its 9.2 MPa (91 atm) carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide atmosphere is almost 100 times as dense as Earth's. These facts are closely interrelated, as Venus's extreme tem…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The atmosphere of Venus is the very dense layer of gases surrounding the planet Venus. Venus's atmosphere is composed of 96.5% carbon dioxide and 3.5% nitrogen, with other chemical compounds present only in trace amounts. It is much denser and hotter than that of Earth; the temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (9.3 MPa; 1,350 psi), roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) under water on Earth. The atmosphere of Venus supports decks of opaque clouds of sulfuric acid that cover the entire planet, preventing, until recently, optical Earth-based and orbital observation of the surface. Information about surface topography was originally obtained exc…

Evidence: — • authority: 88

Venus: Atmospheric Evolution. This chapter discusses the greenhouse effect and climate evolution using Venus as an example. Venus mostly has an Earth-like inventory of volatile gases—the basic ingredients of atmospheres and oceans—but with one glaring exception: water. Earth's ocean is 300 times as massive as its atmosphere. Water is more abundant than all the other volatiles combined, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and oxygen. In contrast, Venus has only a small amount of water, and it is all in the atmosphere. The chapter first compares Earth and Venus in terms of size, distance from the Sun, and bulk composition, as well as climates and inventories of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitro…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

The Emergence of an Urable Earth: How Early Planetary Evolution Shaped the Chemical Window for Life's Origin.. Earth's early history provides the only natural record for evaluating how planetary evolution can generate environments capable of initiating life. Here we review early Earth evolution through the lens of urability: the time-dependent capacity of planetary environments to support prebiotic chemistry progressing toward compartmentalized, self-propagating, information-bearing systems. We argue that urability is not a single globally habitable state, but a transient overlap among several coupled dimensions: liquid water availability, permissive temperature, ocean pH and salinity, acce…