Russian Scientist Claims Signs of Life Spotted On Venus 272
flergum writes "Leonid Ksanfomaliti, an astronomer based at the Space Research Institute of Russia's Academy of Sciences, analyzed photographs taken by a Russian landing probe during 1982 and claims to have found signs of life. Ksanfomaliti says the Russian photographs depict objects resembling a 'disk,' a 'black flap' and a 'scorpion.'"
WWCSD? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WWCSD? (Score:5, Funny)
What Would Charlie Sheen Do?
Re:WWCSD? (Score:5, Funny)
Claim he has Venusian Scorpian blood?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Discover extraterrestrials being responsible for global warming on Earth, except that they claim that all they did was just speed things along because humans were foolish enough to not care anyway.
Re:WWCSD? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" -The Sagan Standard
"I get to decide which claims are extraordinary and which claims aren't." -The Opposition Standard
~Loyal
Re:WWCSD? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I find it more interesting that an astronomer is making the claim than say a biologist.
It does seem very unlikely that a complex life from like a scorpion would live on Venus. If they do then it will be huge but the odds are really high that it is just an error.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, huge scorpions might explain the sighting on lower resolutions pictures - from 1982.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
That is just it we do kind of know.
Chemistry is the same everywhere. Take your idea about liquid hydrogen and liquid methane for example. Anyplace that is cold enough for those to exist are probably too cold for life. Life need energy and anyplace that cold will be by definition be energy poor.
Venus is probably too hot. Again it comes down to chemistry. They type of reactions that are needed for what we call life just will not work at heat because molecules like proteins well just fall apart on in this case
Re: (Score:3)
Re:WWCSD? (Score:4, Insightful)
It does seem very unlikely that a complex life from like a scorpion would live on Venus.
It seems even more unlikely that any extraterrestrial life would evolve to look exactly like anything on Earth.
Re:WWCSD? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Marcello Truzzi is credited with coining that phrase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcello_Truzzi [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:WWCSD? (Score:5, Informative)
Careers can be ruined by this sort of thing, ignorant journalists and skeptical armchair scientists.
mirage (Score:4, Informative)
Re:mirage (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot eats degree symbols, even if encoded as HTML entities. Alas we cannot poke fun at people for that particular typographical wandering.
Neither the SI temperature unit (K) nor the most common (C) require a pesky degree symbol. As the internets is supposed to be worldwide and modern, perhaps chosing one of those units might have been more appropriate?
Re:mirage (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're a bit confused about typographical conventions around representation of Celsius. This is a quick and illuminating read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius#Name_and_symbol_typesetting [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Something you can expect with 700 kph winds.
There are no 700 kph on the surface of Venus. They actually move at walking pace. Given the density of the atmosphere, however, you wouldn't be able to stand still anyway.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:mirage (Score:5, Funny)
Re:mirage (Score:5, Informative)
Mirage. Or easily explained by the distortion of a lens by heat in desert conditions - this one a scathing 1k F.
I doubt it. You need temperature variations in order to get this effect (hot ground, colder atmosphere) which is not going to happen on Venus, seeing as most of the heat and light is absorbed in the atmosphere before it touches the ground. You won't even get diurnal temperature variations, as the thermal capacity of the dense armosphere is quite significant, and finally, the convection will smooth out any local temperature inequalities. You simply never get the optical interface necessary for a mirage.
No pictures!~ (Score:5, Funny)
No pictures were included, so how can we form our own, uneducated, opinions???
Re:No pictures!~ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No pictures!~ (Score:5, Funny)
scorpion flap or gtfo?
Re:No pictures!~ (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably a gas balloon
Or maybe the Google Street View car
Re:No pictures!~ (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a Single Picture (Score:5, Informative)
No pictures were included, so how can we form our own, uneducated, opinions???
This article from Ria Novosti [en.rian.ru] has one picture with attributions to the scientist and journal. I'm not sure what you're looking at but I am guessing that the object outside of the pod is not a device of theirs -- which leads to a lot of speculation and conjecture. I guess I don't know enough about their sensors/cameras that they were using in 1982 to say whether or not this was some sort of aberration or malfunction of the camera due to extreme temperatures. But that's about the best uneducated opinion I can offer you.
Re:Here's a Single Picture (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
“Let’s boldly suggest (Score:3)
“Let’s boldly suggest"
Let's not.
Scorpions? (Score:5, Funny)
Leonid Ksanfomaliti, ...claims to have found signs of life...objects resembling ... a scorpion
I haven't heard the Scorpions since the 80s. They were pretty good in their niche. Is this a reunion tour?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Scorpions? (Score:4, Funny)
Leonid Ksanfomaliti, ...claims to have found signs of life...objects resembling ... a scorpion
I haven't heard the Scorpions since the 80s. They were pretty good in their niche. Is this a reunion tour?
Nope. The summary specifies that the scientist's claims are based on 30-year-old photos, which means they may have been on Venus then (which isn't so far-fetched... they opened for a group called UFO in 1972 and their guitarist then joined UFO [wikipedia.org], so it's quite possible that the scientist saw a UFO who looked like a Scorpion because he used to be one), but according to Wikipedia they've been back for some time now. In fact, their tour at the time of these photos was called the Blackout Tour. Curiouser and curiouser.
Re: (Score:2)
Your post rocked me like a hurricane.
Re: (Score:2)
And hey, there are hurricane-force winds on Venus. See how it all comes together?
Re: (Score:2)
Venera pictures (Score:5, Interesting)
See this site for the best processed pictures from the Venera missions. Absolutely fascinating stuff those Russians did then.
http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_DigitalImages.htm [mentallandscape.com]
Re:Venera pictures (Score:5, Informative)
Er, sorry. Try this newer page:
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm [mentallandscape.com]
Re: (Score:2)
that site seems to be getting hammered... try this cached copy:
http://www.free-photos.biz/photographs/science/astronomy/67895_c_venera09_processed.php [free-photos.biz]
Well, these ought to be interesting pictures... (Score:5, Informative)
*clicks on article* ...Hmm, ok, no pictures here.
*googles it* http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2090556/Life-Venus-Russian-scientist-claims-seen-scorpion-probe-photographs.html?ito=feeds-newsxml [dailymail.co.uk].
Yea... I'm no astrocryptozoologist, but that doesn't look like life to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
come on, no pics? (Score:2)
And seriously... why do we even see this story here?
Re: (Score:2)
Yea it's a bit miss leading. He found a little blue pill and exclaimed, "Zhere be life in my vinus!!" to his wife. That was heard by someone else and this article came of it.
We have to go deeper! (Score:3)
Digging back to the original source gets "Solar System Research". Seems like a legit journal:
http://www.maik.ru/cgi-perl/journal.pl?name=solsys&page=main [www.maik.ru]
Re:We have to go deeper! (Score:5, Interesting)
The author designed some of the instruments on Venera, in fact. I can find several articles by him in the aformentioned journal but nothing that suggests "aliens".
http://www.springerlink.com/content/0038-0946/?k=Ksanfomaliti [springerlink.com]
Intelligence found (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yahoos (Score:2, Funny)
Sigh... I don't know if anything from Yahoo is even worthy of /. idle. The site is really a testament to what happens when a company stands still. Frequent users are almost exclusively people who landed there after AOL ceased to be a premiere destination (in popular culture). Just like Yahoo, they didn't upgrade and adapt. And that's why their user base is on the left side of the curve and their user-generated content is terrifyingly ignorant.
Come, stare into the abyss of people just smart enough to us
Re: (Score:2)
I for one... (Score:2)
Pareidolia (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
... The guy is either suffering from pareidolia [wiktionary.org] or drinking too much vodka.
Can you say: FALSE DICHOTOMY!
read the article to the bottom (Score:2)
Translation: They're tricks of the light or other optical illustions.
Not unlike ... (Score:2)
The comments on these photo's sound very much like the pictures of the monster at Lock Ness.
perhaps the same phenomena underlies the 'realty' of both sets of creatures.
Suppose . . . (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Leonid Whatshisname (Score:2)
Independently evolved life would be different (Score:2)
I suppose there are some chances that some alien life would superficially resemble life on earth. But not likely. Any significant similarity would be more easily explained by a common ancestor. If there is no common ancestor, all bets are off, and since the mutation and selection pressures on another world would be completely different, the resulting life forms would be completely different. Sure, it's more likely than not that they'd be made of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, etc., and it's likely (because i
Saw a scorpian? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The ancient astronomers have seen a hunter, a scorpion, a bull, a big bear, a small bear, a girl, a lion etc etc for a long time in the skys with nothing more than a few pin pricks of light. When you have the imagination, you can see anything.
Your puny human vision requires to to have imagination, and when your sleep cycle scrubs your short term memory, committing important thoughts to longer term storage by way of randomized synapse firing & strengthening you DO "see anything". When conscious what you see as pins' prickings I see as enormous gravity furnaces that warp the very essence of the Universe and forge new stable configurations of energy (matter). Reality is stranger than fiction.
You don't even want to know what's going on insi
a 'disk,' a 'black flap' and a 'scorpion.' (Score:2)
Ksanfomaliti says the Russian photographs depict objects resembling a 'disk,' a 'black flap' and a 'scorpion.'"
Yeah, and NASA took photos of what appeared to be a stature of a human head on Mars, which was actually just a trick of shadow and light.
"Greenhoue effect" (Score:2, Informative)
I wish people would stop saying "greenhouse effect" caused the heating. It's simply not true. It is the atmospheric density and proximity to the sun which makes it so hot.
Venus: 93 bar surface pressure, 96.5% CO2, 460C surface temp
Mars 0.00636 bar surface pressure, 95.3% CO2, -63C surface temp
What's responsible for the heating?
Re:"Greenhoue effect" (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
What's responsible for the heating?
Erm, homosexuals [youtube.com]?
Re:"Greenhoue effect" (Score:5, Informative)
The sun is responsible for the heating. The dense atmosphere is responsible for keeping the heat in. Like, y'know, a greenhouse.
Or did you think that the atmosphere was dense enough to undergo nuclear fusion and release heat, or something?
Re: (Score:3)
the higher pressure means higher temperatures. PV=T and all that regardless of gaseous makeup.
Yes, if you compress a gas its temperature will increase. However it will then lose that heat. Making a gas dense doesn't magically allow it to maintain an elevated temperature.
Re: (Score:2)
The Sun is responsible for the heating. The atmosphere is responsible for keeping the heat in. Which is called....the greenhouse effect!
It's also why Venus is hotter than a much closer Mercury, and why Venus doesn't have a hot and cold side in spite of rotating rather slowly.
Re:"Greenhoue effect" (Score:4, Insightful)
The greenhouse effect IS responsible for the high temperatures. This is why the temperature stays pretty much the same even on the dark side of the planet. Solar radiation comes in but radiates away very slowly. This is demonstrated by the night side temperatures, which are pretty much the same as the day side temperatures. This is also verified by the stratospheric temperature difference from the surface (the stratosphere is very cold, since little heat is escaping from the troposphere).
Density plays a part because it further reduces the rate of heat escaping. However, it is the CO2 gas that is key. An atmosphere of 95% Nitrogen, for example, would not be nearly as scorching and given the slow rotational rate, the night side of the planet would be bone chilling cold. Our own atmosphere is mostly nitrogen and oxygen, and without the various greenhouse gases (water vapor, CO2, methane, etc.) our planet would be a block of ice.
Re: (Score:3)
Scientifically, the trapping of the solar heat on Venus is caused by what is called a greenhouse effect (i.e., the trapping of outbound IR radiation), exactly the same in nature as the greenhouse effect on Earth, but much more efficient due to the considerably thicker atmosphere and different composition of Venus' atmosphere. This has been known since Mariner 2, in 1962.
The existence and importance of greenhouse effects for the Earth, Mars and Venus have all been verified for decades. There is absolutely no
Re: (Score:3)
The difference is huge. The percentages are similar, but the quantity of CO2 a photon goes through on the way to the surface of Venus is incredibly higher than the quantity of CO2 a photon goes through on the way to the surface of Mars. That pressure bit matters a lot.
Speeking of imagination (Score:3)
I always wondered how long you could keep a baloon aloft on Venus. I would think you would be able to use thermal electric effect (peltier/stirling engine) of altitude vs surface heat to create energy and use the acidic clouds to maintain a lighter than CO2 gas for the baloon -- like a CO2 to SO2 converter or something.
Wear a hard hat (Score:2)
Looking for the actual pictures? (Score:5, Informative)
Look here [cosmostv.org]
Re: (Score:2)
And here [mentallandscape.com] too.
Re: (Score:2)
What distance? It says the pictures were from a Russian landing probe.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, they probably built those martian pyramids that VHS tape I bought in the 80's told me about.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Well. I mean the summary did link to Yahoo.
When did anything of value ever come from Yahoo?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
"looked like a disk, a black flap, and a scorpion"
Is that like one of those drafting exercises where an object looks like a black flap from the front, a scorpion from the side, and a disk from above?
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
Usually, kinda black and flappy. :-P
Re: (Score:2)
Given the complete lack of photos in TFA, I'll stick with my description.
All it says is that "another news source reported that a Russian scientist claims to have found something".
There's absolutely nothing I've been able to find that allows one to reach any conclusions about the ability of the camera to register contrast. Because there are no pictures in the links.
So, black and flappy i
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
The picture is published at "Is this life on Venus? Russian scientist claims to have seen 'scorpion' in probe photographs" [dailymail.co.uk]; I don't think it look like a scorpion though, more like the bio-luminous worm like thingies in the movie "Pitch Black" to me. The photos are way to grainey to get anywhere past the "if you squint your eyes and tilt your head" stage. The book "There's Somebody Else on the Moon" had way better photos.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, if you don't find big breasted scorpions [adsoftheworld.com] sexy, then you're just too close-minded to be a russian scientist.
Re: (Score:2)