Venus and Life 36
An anonymous reader writes "Venus-- thought in the 1950's by British astrophysicist, Fred Hoyle, to be covered in oil-- is discussed today by NASA's Principal Investigator for Planetary Atmospheres and Venus Data Analysis Program as having water in its atmosphere, and strange ultraviolet absorbers that swirl in the upper clouds. He speculates on the four ways that Venus might harbor life. Today's Cessna 182 crash led to the tragic death of the spacecraft manager for the highly successful Venus Magellan radar mapping mission, Gary Parker. The next scheduled Venus fly-by will be in 2004 and 2006 by the Johns Hopkins/Goddard Messenger spacecraft on its four-year mission to study Mercury."
Mercury? (Score:3, Interesting)
Will a spacecraft even last 4 years that close to the sun? Does it plan on staying on the "dark side" of Mercury?
I mean, the article [spacedaily.com] says that "The frame for Messenger's signature sunshade - which will protect the craft and its instruments from the intense heat at Mercury - is due to arrive this week from GenCorp Aerojet. Layers of ceramic fabric will be added to the frame at APL over the next two months." but will that be enough? I mean it is the sun after all. I'd be surprised if it didn't fry as soon as it got within Mercury's gravitational field.
Re:Mercury? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Mercury? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mercury? (Score:2)
Re:Mercury? (Score:1)
Re:Mercury? (Score:4, Informative)
Gamma rays ARE light and can be blocked by about a centimeter (or two) of a reasonably dense metal. And I'm pretty sure that the Sun doesn't give a lot of them off most of the time when it's quiet, being a blackbody peaking in the visible.
Alpha and beta particles won't penetrate a metal heat shield of any appreciable thickness. Since Messanger will spend at least some of it's time inside of Mercury's magnetosphere (I'd need the specs on the orbit to figure out how much, or if it's the entire orbit) alpha and beta particles from the Sun won't be reaching it *anyway*. (The Sun emits electrons and *protons* in abundance as a solar wind. Not quite so much in the way of helium nuclei. But the solar wind doesn't penetrate the magnetosphere proper.)
In any event, these things don't usually do much damage for their heat. They tend to mess with electronics by flipping bits and damaging the electronic substrates. NASA won't let them fly non-radiation hardened electronics. (In fact, all chips will probably have been tested on earlier missions nearer Earth.)
Duh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Duh (Score:1)
Hoyle, covered in oil (Score:2)
It brings joy to my heart to remember space-bourne viruses and the extra long nasal passages tree-dwelling monkeys have to defend against them.
What this article really needs now is a creationist to start quoting Hoyle to prove that the chances of evolution happening are 1 in a gawdzillion.
Hey, wouldn't a 'mozillion' be a cool number? We could make it equal to the number of ink droplets in the Library of Congress or something.
Re:Hoyle, covered in oil (Score:3, Funny)
Mozillion - The number of seconds it takes for Mozilla to start up.
Re:Hoyle, covered in oil (Score:1, Informative)
Sorry if it offends your religion. And his guesstimate was 1 in 10^40000 odds of life beginning on earth by stochastic means. Such an optimist he was.
Call Bush (Score:3, Funny)
Call Bush to tell him that Venus has oil. That should get more funding for space exploration
Unless he's heard of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," in which case he'll probably start a war against women^W^W^W^W^W take action to liberate the women of Venus from an evil opressive dictator...
Re:Call Bush (Score:1)
And the place is covered in oil too....
Wahoo! Sign me up.....
Absolutely shocking! (Score:2)
Mmmmmm, oily astrophysicist.... /Homer
Dr Fish
Thats pretty depresing (Score:2)
Re:Thats pretty depresing (Score:1)
anyone wanna bet that this was a 'wellstone-type' affair?
na, forget it, we'll never know the truth anyway...
call me paranoid, but anyone who says it can't happen has their head in the sand. i would rather call it healthy skepticism than paranoia... but either is preferable to being numbered among the 'sheeple'
pH matters (Score:2)
Sure, life can survive some pretty extreme conditionsi [thermal vents], but can it form there?
Re:pH matters (Score:2)
Re:pH matters (Score:2)
Besides, Venus may not have always been the way it is today.
off his nut (Score:2)
Re:off his nut (Score:2)
Since I know David Grinspoon, I can assure you that he is not off his nut. Please note the following:
Re:off his nut (Score:2)
a much better article.. (Score:2)
mod parent Offtopic (Score:2)
uh... (Score:3, Funny)
I'd sure hope so...
Life on Venus (Score:2, Interesting)
Look at it scientifically (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Look at it scientifically (Score:2)
This is a bit sweeping. Let's try: "Liquid helium. Center of the sun." No.
Life can exist in a wide variety of environments, possibly even including the upper atmosphere of Venus. But I would give very long odds on a bet that the surface is anything but sterile.
Re:Look at it scientifically (Score:1)
What is life? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What is life? (Score:2)
Didn't pay much attention in Thermodynamics class, did we?