New Scientist: Venus' Atmosphere Implies Life 281
WolfWithoutAClause writes "This New Scientist article says that the atmosphere of Venus has features that may only be explaineable by the existence of life in its upper atmosphere. In particular it has cartain chemicals which are extremely difficult to make inorganically. At the altitude where life is suspected the temperature is about 70C and about 1 atmosphere. There are gases there which are not naturally found together. The article suggests something is actively producing them, quite possibly, life."
Life? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Life? (Score:3, Insightful)
New Scientist do a pretty good PR job every week to get some story into the press / radio to generate some interest. Usually the story itself will be relatively light, and centred on a new piece of research which raises a possibility - it is the tabloid reporting of these that state 'Mer are all dicks, and there IS life of Venus' or some such (I'll never get that sub-ed job).
Re:Life? (Score:2)
37 to ask what the hell you want with a lightbulb when a match works perfectly well.
We have Found Lando Calrissian's Hideout (Score:4, Funny)
Regards,
D.V.
Re:We have Found Lando Calrissian's Hideout (Score:2)
It would appear as though my silly comment rubbed a moderator the wrong way.
Well, he can have an apology: I'm sorry that my comment touched a sore spot with you. I hope you find that life you're looking for one day. Heh.
Re:Life? (Score:2, Informative)
New Scientist was a reputable magazine...
but my fiancee (who is a real scientist, does stuff with dna & microbes & proteins that I'll never understand - I'll stick to my C++ and my Java
eh..ah yes...she laughed. Long and loud.
She compared it to the "Womans Weekly of the science world" (i.e. trash)
Turns out that most scientists that read the New Scientist only read it for one reason: The job-advertisements in the back!
Re:Life?, did we bring it ourselves? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Apollo 12 mission brought back some parts of the unmanned Surveyor 3 probe, which had been on the surface of the moon for 31 months. The Surveyor 3 had not been sterilized prior to its launch, and the researchers found a few small colonies of bacteria (Streptococcus mitis) inside some parts of the probe which had survived the 31 month exposure to the lunar environment.
Of course, the bacteria could have also been accidentally introduced during the trip home or during the research....
Re:Self-contradiction in action (Score:2)
Re:Self-contradiction in action (Score:2, Interesting)
Again, life is seen as unusual, in that its products are assumed to be different from those produced by inorganic processes rather than the results of parallel organic and inorganic processes. Keep in mind that Venus is basically a huge pressure cooker. One might also be reminded that the primary difference claimed by the alchemists between their art and that of the chemists was the practice of slow cooking.
Re:Self-contradiction in action (Score:2, Interesting)
"That is why the presence of things that react together quickly shows that something is re-supplying the process, which means life. Unless you know something we don't?"
That's not exactly what it says:
"Solar radiation and lightning should produce large quantities of carbon monoxide in the planet's atmosphere, but instead it is scarce, as if something is removing it. They also found hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide. These two gases react with each other, and so are never normally found together unless something is producing them."
The operant word is "should." They are postulating life on the basis of the absence of something they think "should" be there, or rather, even less convincingly, on the basis of their inability to detect something they think "should" be there.
As for the presence of gases that "normally" react together, one is tempted to ask, how are we defining normal? There is nothing particularly "normal" about Venus except to the extent that I have already suggested, that anything not subject to human intervention can be thought of as "natural." Venus is certainly not "normal" when compared to the Earth, and any suppositions regarding what SHOULD be happening there are premature at best.
The contradiction referred to in the subject line results from the supposition that the presence of life is somehow unnatural. I would remind you that what is normally thought of as a dichotomy, inorganic-organic, is actually part of a continuum: inorganic, organic, cybernetic,...,n. One could just as easily postulate the presence of any one of these terms in the vicinity of Venus if it is assumed that some chemical process or lack thereof indicates an unnatural (read not inorganic) condition. Despite the reference in the article to a "theory," this is in fact just a hypothesis. Any other hypothesis would have equal standing until subjected to some kind of experimentation. Appealing to William of Occam, one might more productively suggest that there is some chemical process going on in the atmosphere of Venus that we do not completely understand. Perhaps resulting from the presence of a chemical poison (the opposite of a catalyst) that we have not yet detected.
Re:Life? (Score:3, Funny)
Or just to play head games with people for laughs. Eggs are good for you today and now they're bad for you again and now they're good for you again. Confusing isn't it?
And of course The ONION's take on this whimsy science... From FussyMonkey.COM (a wonderful archive of "The ONION RADIO NEWS")
http://www.fussymonkey.com/orn/ [fussymonkey.com]
Snickering [fussymonkey.com]
Researchers Say Dog Urine Lowers The Risk Of Heart Disease
Here's one! (Score:3, Interesting)
Life on Venus? (Score:4, Funny)
I may not know too much, but.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I may not know too much, but.. (Score:2, Informative)
the temperature on venus is several 100 degrees C, not to mention the storms that rage at speeds near the speed sound, and the fact that the atmosphere would probably corrode the helmet off an astronaut in 30 minutes.
Re:I may not know too much, but.. (Score:2, Funny)
Life in the Atmosphere of Venus (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Life in the Atmosphere of Venus (Score:4, Informative)
To test the theory, obviously you'd need a sample of the atmosphere. Although New Scientist mentions ESA's Venus Express mission, it doesn't say whether the mission would have the necessary equipment to check for life.
Re:Life in the Atmosphere of Venus (Score:2)
Easy!
http://www.omnimag.com/archives/continuum/venus.ht ml [omnimag.com]
Let me grab my goggles and a slurpie, and I'll be right over!
Now that's sci-fi appeal! (Score:4, Interesting)
From the article:
I think this would be amazing. Whenever there has been a possibility of life before, it has always been microscopic bacteria frozen in rock or ice. Nearly undetectable, and certainly nothing that would visually incite people. But this? Huge swarms that discolor the atmosphere under ultraviolet light? If true, I'd bet that these images become more popular than Cindy Margolis.
Re: Now that's sci-fi appeal! (Score:2, Funny)
> But this? Huge swarms that discolor the atmosphere under ultraviolet light? If true, I'd bet that these images become more popular than Cindy Margolis.
Only among them what get their Viagra and LSD mixed up.
Developing ideas (Score:2, Informative)
Meanwhile the Swedish Space Agency is looking for international partners to develop their idea for a mission to return a sample of the atmosphere from Venus around 2010.
So how'd you do it?
Re:Developing ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
- Put a vehicle in orbit.
- Insert a probe into the atmosphere (either from the orbiter or as a separate vehicle). This probe could use one or more of several techniques (parachute, winged design (no retro-thrusters at this stage as this may contaminate the samples)) to perform a fairly slow and controlled descent.
- The probe fills a small canister with gas (possibly several compartments from different altitudes) and propels it back up into orbit before the pressure and gravity gets too high
- Dock the canister with the orbiter and send it back to earth.
Difficult? Damn right. Impossible? Nope. Just keep those pesky imperial units away from the project and you should be set. The probe could continue to send back data to the orbiter as it goes down, but it's probably too much to ask for a soft landing.Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
Even with a hard landing, make sure it has a self-destruct so the Rebels can't examine it.
"A Wookie? What's a Wookie doing on..."
Decayed Orbit (Score:2)
This was a very real concern during re-entry of the manned space missions. If the angle of re-entry was to steep, then the spacecraft would come in too fast and burn up. If the angle was too shallow, then the danger was the spacecraft would "bounce" off the atmosphere and get into an unpredictable orbit around the earth. In this case, we could use the bounce to our advantage.
Re:Decayed Orbit (Score:2)
- Ensign, take us into eccentric orbit. Make it so. :-)
I thought about that, but I wasn't sure if you could get far enough into the atmosphere to collect relevant samples - since these possible microbes seem to live in a specific layer. Also, the density of the venusian atmosphere would make this a very tricky proposition. That said, I think this approach can very well be used in one of the preparatory missions, to gather more data before the real deal.
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
Does that mean I could pass myself off as a rocket scientist? :-)
Why not just build a small lifting-body system
Because that might actually work. :-) You'd still need some heat-shielding, though. I didn't think of launch weight (earth) as a factor since this whole shebang can be assembled in earth orbit (ISS, anyone?) and the re-exit canister wouldn't need any shielding, but having one single vehicle going in and back out would. The shuttle is basically a really obese lifting body in drag and it needs lots of heat shielding - but a lighter, aerodynamicaler (yes, I just made that word up, so there!) body would probably need less. Then again, the much denser atmosphere might create a problem with that assumption...
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
You have to build enough shielding that the entire system (or even just some important exposed bit or piece) doesn't get devoured by Acid.
Kintanon
Re:Developing ideas (Score:4, Interesting)
But the heat just gives us even more reasons to not (at least not as a first step) land first and try to launch back up. It's much easier to propel the canister(s) from a decent altitude than if you wait until you're in deep. Gravity, pressure and heat all combine to make it unnecessary difficult (and expensive, since all propellants and other resources has to be brought along for the ride) to do launches from the surface.
Or, just get the orbiter there and launch disposable probes into the atmosphere that can analyze the gases as they tumble down through the soup and relay back the results via the orbiter. This could be done as a cheaper and faster precursor to the "bring 'em back alive" mission, to help develop the technology, methodology and focus of the mission.
Re:Developing ideas (Score:5, Informative)
Damn straight. Venus has the same gravity as Earth, remember? Which means that getting stuff out of its gravity well is an incredible hassle. If you need an Ariane or a Proton to get an object off Earth, you're going to need another Ariane or Proton to get it off Venus again once you've landed it there. And the super-dense atmosphere is going to cause even more problems.
No, launching from Venus is a problem that can happily wait until nuclear rockets or antigravity are feasible.
Besides, if there is life on Venus, I'd much rather study it in situ than bring some back here. While it almost certainly wouldn't survive in an Earth environment, that 'almost' worries me a bit...
Re:Developing ideas (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2, Interesting)
But you have to bring the sample back if you want to actually gather some microbes and bring them back for deeper studies. If they really are microbes, we would want to know what they use for genetic information, and if it is DNA, then we want to sequence it to see where it comes from.
I wonder if you could have a probe dip into the atmosphere, maybe without even slowing (much) from the Earth to Venus trip, and still have enough momentum to get back out. Ok, so it is a bit hard to collect samples at mach 2+ (probably plus a lot), and even if you could they might be destroyed in the process.
You definitely don't want to land, then launch. All this activity is in the upper atmosphere anyway.
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
That's if we want to get into orbit personally. A few ccs of gas is another matter entirely. The re-exit container won't need a heat shield for re-entry, no system for a landing or even maneuvering (the orbiter could do that) and much of the other stuff we need to get out of our gravity well (and back again) might not be needed.
The skimming idea is dependant on if the interesting layers are accessible that way. It's currently believed to be a layer at 50kms altitude at one atm pressure - so unless we can find the same stuff a lot higher up (with correspondingly lower pressures) I don't see that happening. As a fact-finding mission before going in and grabbing the little guys, sure.
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
I agree, but the premise was to return a sample of the atmosphere (to earth, presumably - or, to the ISS where one could argue for better containment - IT CAME FROM VENUS - THE MOVIE!). I didn't argue against that, just thought of a way to do it (or rather, one way of doing it). I also agree with the idea to survey first, but I'm not sure if this should be done with the same craft as collecting the samples since there are considerable differences in the mission and orbit profiles.
That's why I suggested an orbiting surveyor, relay and return vehicle (this can be almost arbitrarily large if assembled in earth orbit), one (at least) descent probe (heat shield, mass spectrometer, a Gentoo CD to prove our intelligence, whatever) and the return canister for the gas going back up to the orbiter. If nothing else, you can get much more instrumentation onboard the orbiter than anything we can hope to keep alive in the atmosphere.
I think maybe I was influenced by the Apollo missions - one command module staying in orbit, one lunar lander assembly going down and one craft to get back up from the moon. It made sense back then and it seems to me it still does.
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
Not necessarily, you don't have to miniaturize so much and can use several low-tech, low-cost instruments developed by many participating countries and agencies. Also, it's easier to lay out the interior of the craft if you're not cramped for space (har, har), saving time and money.
Of course, if the microbes aren't fairly high up in the atmosphere, then my idea doesn't work.
Well, the article said ~one atm and since Venus has roughly the same gravity as Earth, that would mean a lot of gas between that layer and space (unless the microbes are present more or less all the way out, which seems unlikely). Or, if the distance between one atm pressure and space for some reason is much less on Venus than on Earth.
But I hope we'll see what the real rocket scientists come up with. :-)
Re:Developing ideas (Score:2)
Kintanon
Cool. (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Isn't the adjective pertaining to Venus 'venereal'?
2. If true, life must truly be ubiquitous. In the solar system alone, we've got Earth, Mars, Europa, Titan and now Venus. Of course, there's only evidence so far of life on one, but the very fact that scientists are even considering it is a testament to life's tenacity.
3. Can someone who knows more than I tell us all how easy it'd be for UV light to penetrate to the required depth? I wouldn't have thought it possible.
Re:Cool. (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, but to avoid the obvious innuendo people tend to derive an alternative based on 'Martian'. i.e. 'Venusian' or 'Venutian'.
But not 'Venison'.:)
The evidence so far from those other places is purely hypothetical and circumstantial. But you're right - it is comforting to think that self-replicating patterns, structures and chemicals exist beyond our world. The big question is - Are those patterns found elsewhere complex enough to form sentient beings. Or am I being sentimental?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that it would be possible to see your surroundings if you were somehow able to survive a visit to Venus' surface - the light being a dark dull red glow. If ordinary light can get through then UV will definitely make it to the surface - On a cloudy day here on Earth, 80% of the UV radiation can make it through the clouds. People don't get suntans on those days simply because they spend more time indoors.Re:Cool. (Score:2)
Well for what it's worth, Venera 9 and Venera 10 managed to return images [solarviews.com] with lighting that was reportedly similar to an overcast summer day on Earth. (At least the Venera 10 photo was.) I'm not sure if that means visual light or not.
Too bad the view wouldn't stop human tourists from being crushed to death, combusted into nothing and suffocated, all simultaneously. :)
Re:Cool. (Score:2)
1. Isn't the adjective pertaining to Venus 'venereal'?
Yes, but to avoid the obvious innuendo people tend to derive an alternative based on 'Martian'. i.e. 'Venusian' or 'Venutian'.
You can use "Cytherean" [xrefer.com] as well.
History (Score:2)
Personally I'm not that enthuiastic yet. Scientists were considering life on Mars, the Moon and life on Venus and life outside of Earth generally 100 years ago, too. Respected scientists throughout history were involved in a lot of these theories, which unfortunately were often hyped out of proportionby media and others. It doesn't mean that the basis for the considerations were correct or meaningful or led to anything except for hype.
There's definitely a lot of anecdotal evidence so far supporting the idea that life might exist in other places, and it's interesting. I'm going to wait for life somewhere else to actually be proven before I get too excited, though.
Not necessarily (Score:2)
This is all conjecture anyway. We have no proof that life exists on these other planets. New Scientist these days is a tremendously speculative publication.
For a good discussion about life's probability's, read Not By Chance by Dr. Lee Spetner.
Re:Not necessarily (Score:2)
Spetner's discussion of the issue is about as good as someone who claims that helium filled ballon cannot rise, because given random movement, it's very unlikely that it would go straight upwards. You can't simply calculate odds of something as if every process were random. Discussing the potential origins of life is fundamentally about _mechanism_, not mere probability.
Re:Cool. (Score:2)
A testament to wishful thinking, maybe, but no real proof of life's tenacity at all.
Not, mind you, that I have any objections to theories of extraterrestrial life, just that this particular factoid doesn't really support your hypothesis.
Re:Cool. (Score:2)
Damn me for trying to fit too much information into a pithy wee sentence. You're right, of course. What I should have said what that we're increasingly coming across environments on Earth where life is thriving; hot springs, nuclear cooling rods... basically, there are more and more environments out there where life can be supported; be it via geothermal energy on Europa, clouds on Venus, subterranean rock on Mars (what's the word that should be there instead of 'subterranean'?)... the list goes ever on.
Of course, this says nothing about the genesis of life; that could still be a one in a godzillion chance. But once it's established, everything we know (from our limited vantage point) tells us that it's hard to get rid of.
Hmm..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmm..... (Score:2)
Let's find out (Score:2)
Re:Hmm..... (Score:2)
But there were "respectable" astronomers who claimed to see very *strait* markings all over Mars.
Some speculate that what was really being seen was blood vessels in their own eye. I bet such an astronomer would feel like a real numnut if alive today.
Humm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Humm... (Score:2, Funny)
Here is the scenario as I see it.
1. Earth sends 'probes' (hee hee - he said 'probes') to Venus.
2. Earth accidentally 'seeds' Venus with our 'probes'.
3. New Scientist reports infected atmosphere on Venus. Possible bugs.
4. Earth sends more 'probes' to Venus to bring back sample.
5. Accidental release of sample into Earth's atmosphere......
6. ?
7. Profit.
8. Earth decimated by 'venereal'' bugs, or VD.
There you have it. We are the origin of our destruction.
Re:Humm... (Score:2)
But who knows? There are bacteria surviving in the depths of volcanos on earth.
Re:Contamination from Earth (Score:5, Interesting)
The dust tail includes gases and fine dust particles, including things the size of bacterial spores. We've also known for decades that many such spores can survive indefinitely in space.
The conclusion is obvious. Bacterial spores from Earth have been contaminating the outer solar system, probably for several billion years. Some of them will get picked up by meteoroids and comets and carried back to the inner solar system, so Mercury and Venus have also been colonized by these bacteria.
Probably not many survive. But it's likely that some do. And, of course, their descendants will have re-colonized the Earth.
The solar system is a pretty messy place, when you look at it on a microscopic scale.
One article I read back in the 70's did a rough calculation on a larger scale. The Earth circles the galaxy in about 250,000 years. We've made more than a dozen orbits since bacterial life arose here, spraying spores most of that time. The author calculated that by now the entire galaxy has been contaminated several times over by Earthly spores. Of course, we don't know how many could survive interstellar space for the required millions of years.
But it's fun to think about.
Re:Contamination from Earth (Score:2)
Or perhaps the reverse: that galactic dust/comets have seeded the Earth with microbes rather than life being "native" to Earth.
IOW, life here may be something like 10 billion years old instead of 5.
Some alien in Orion may even hold a patent on all of us who came from it
Re:Contamination from Earth (Score:2)
Yup; that's the "panspermia" hypothesis that some astronomers (and some biologists) have discussed. In essence, all the places where life arose are busy contaminating the rest of the universe with spores.
Now to collect some evidence
Re:Contamination from Earth (Score:2)
Re:Contamination from Earth (Score:2)
It's been a few decades since I read that article, but as I recall, the author went into quite a lot of detail about the force of the solar wind and the velocities that it imparts to the Earth's dust tail.
The effect isn't trivial. The solar wind varies over a wide range, but the speed of particles as they pass the Earth are comparable to the Earth's orbital speed. Most of the time, the solar wind is above escape velocity. The Earth's dust tail rapidly accelerates to solar-wind velocity. This was the crux of his calculations.
The direction is easy: The dust tail starts off pointing away from the sun. The Earth is in a nearly circular orbit, so the dust tail is a spreading spiral. So the junk is heading out in all directions (though it's mostly close to the plane of the ecliptic).
At the time in the Earth's orbit when it's leading the sun (in our galactic orbit), the dust tail is blowing ahead at more than escape velocity, so that part will spread outward ahead of us at speeds comparable to our speed around the galaxy,
plus solar escape velocity. This is higher than galactical orbital speed in our neighborhood.
In 4 billion years, some of those dust particles will have left the galaxy entirely. Most, however, will end up in assorted galactic orbits, until something bigger stops them.
At the time in the Earth's orbit when it's following the sun, the dust tail will be escaping the solar system with a galactic speed below local orbital velocity. That part of the tail will tend to drop toward galactic center. Its speed will be low, so it might not have got there yet. Some will be soaked up by passing nebulae.
At other times in the Earth's orbit, the dust tail will leave the solar system with intermediate galactic speeds. On average, the speed will be comparable to the solar system's speed, but in different directions. In 4 billion years, the particles will have easily crossed the entire galaxy, unless something stops them.
Remember that in a billion years, the solar system circles the galaxy roughly 4 times. The Earth's dust tail spews out in all directions in the plane of the ecliptic. It has a speed comparable to our galactic orbital velocity, but in different directions. Dust particles and spores will also orbit the galaxy roughly 4 times per billion years, but in assorted directions.
Find a friendly local astronomer or a few good books and do your own calculations. Then start thinking up your own SF plots. But remember that it can take a long time for a bacterial spore to evolve into a Klingon, even on a hospitable planet.
The main unanswered question is how long bacterial spores can really survive in interstellar space. If they're only viable for a million years or so, they could only reach a few nearby stars. The basis of this topic is that bacterial spores do seem to be inert and unchanging, and potentially viable indefinitely.
Re:Contamination from Earth (Score:2)
Re:Contamination from Earth (Score:2)
Yeah; you're right. But what's a few zeroes among friends? The significant part of the astronomical calculation was the dozen or more orbits we've made since bacterial life arose on this rock.
As I recall, the current estimate is more like 260 million years, but of course it depends a lot on what large masses we pass near during the orbit. And they don't have that good an estimate of the detailed mass concentration where we're headed even over the next 10 million years.
Stick around and find out, I say.
Re:Humm... (Score:2)
But the probes had incremental detection apperatuses. The first entering probes were the Soviet probes around 1967 IIRC. I don't know what they detected WRT atmosphere composition, but they were primative by today's standards. The Soviets sent quite a few probes there over time because they had more success at Venus than they had at Mars.
Mars is famous for eating probes. On Venus you can use the thick atmosphere to slow the probe down to landing levels with tiny parachutes, while Mars requires complicated precision timing to land, and sudden wind gusts can put a can of worms into the equations. Venus is more like going into a gradual ocean.
The first image from the surface of another planet (excluding moon) was a Soviet Venus probe around 1975 IIRC, a year before the Viking probes landed on Mars.
Re:Humm... (Score:2)
Is it worth getting excited about? (Score:5, Funny)
Homer: "That's bad."
Shopkeeper: "But it was only some bugs!"
Homer: "That's good!"
Shopkeeper: "The news was reported on New Scientist."
Homer: "That's bad."
Shopkeeper: "But they don't require you to register!"
Homer: "That's good!"
Shopkeeper: "They log your IP address and keep logs of all the pages you go to."
[Silence; Homer looks puzzled]
Shopkeeper: "That's bad."
Homer: "Can I go now?"
Zakabog (Score:2)
Yo ho let's go (Score:5, Funny)
Terraform Venus Now!
Re:Yo ho let's go (Score:2)
Hmmmm. Maybe the poles may be a compromize.
Venus is almost the same size as Earth, so it is a bummer that it is so hot and slow-rotating.
Kind of an odd cooincidence that Venus is almost the same size as Earth, and Mars has almost the same rotation period.
I wonder if we could not use the asteroid-Jupiter-gravity-drag trick to speed up Venus and/or move it to a further orbit? But if it gets too close to Earth, then it's gravity may upset our orbit.
The ideal place would be the exact opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. However, getting it there (via asteroid technique) would require getting it too close to Earth before it can be inserted into that ideal position.
Maybe if we gave it a tilted and/or elliptical orbit, then it would not pass by Earth often enuf to cause disturbances.
Venus is a nice-sized rock. It would be a shame to let it go to waste. Mars is just too puny. It's surface gravity is something like 1/3 of Earth, and that cannot hold a thick enough atmosphere, let alone perhaps give colonizers gravity-related health problems.
Maybe if we could crash Venus into Mars....
Gentlemen, there is bad news... (Score:2)
Then when a ship of the law drops into Earth orbit, I think I'll want to be tried separately.
Note to moderators: don't bother, I know...
Life Again (Score:2, Insightful)
Contamination? (Score:4, Interesting)
They probably didn't decontaminate the probes very well, and if the veneran atmosphere is ideal for some atmospheric bacteria, it could spread like a...disease.
Don't fuck with Venus. Not without a condom at least.
Re:Contamination? (Score:2, Funny)
How about Venusian
Veneran sould like some type of sexually transmitted disease - although it seems like that's what you were aiming for with your last comment.
Re:Contamination? (Score:2)
Re:Contamination? (Score:4, Interesting)
Spread that mass over Venus and you'll have
Since all of that mass would be from atmospheric gasses, you would have chemically transformed 16 tonnes of atmosphere per square meter. That's about 1,5 atmospheric pressures on Earth. Therefore, you would have transformed the entire atmosphere into bacteria.
Of course, this assumes that the Venus atmosphere could supply just the right chemicals in just the right proportion. This is, of course, a critically false assumption.
In any case, this illustrates that exponential growth can be remarkable. Remember that the observations were only about a certain area in the Venus atmosphere (70C etc), which might have the optimal conditions.
But of course, if it really is contamination, and goes on unrestricted, it might actually...wheee...terraform Venus!
Re:Contamination? (Score:2)
Re:Contamination? (Score:2)
Ok, here's an exercise for the reader.
A single bacterium splits every 20 minutes. Assume this rate of growth continues unchecked. How many bacteria will there be at the end of a year? At the end of a decade?
Use Google to find the mass of the bacteria and approximate the time it will take before the mass of the bacteria exceeds the mass of the solar system.
Hint: it can be accomplished in a few decades.
Take some bacteria that split every 20 minutes. How multiply every
Re:Contamination? (Score:2)
Recall that meteorites have been found in Antarctica that are believed to be from Mars. Recall also that it is believed that there have been multiple massive meteorite strikes on earth since the formation of life. Do you suppose it's possible that bacteria-containing rocks may have been expelled from the earth to Venus?
Sounds like... (Score:3, Funny)
At the altitude where life is suspected the temperature is about 70C and about 1 atmosphere. There are gases there which are not naturally found together. The article suggests something is actively producing them, quite possibly, life.
Re:Sounds like... (Score:2)
ALSO a place where large amounts of bacteriological life is present. In my experience astronauts to Venus will have to consume great quantities of alcohol to protect themselves - that's what the finns do.
So I guess one could point out that the Russians are far better prepared to go to Venus than NASA.
oh great. (Score:5, Funny)
KILLER VENUS MICROBE BROUGHT BACK BY SWEDEN
"EATS EVERYTHING"
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story.
If it's life, Jim, then it's not as we know it. (Score:5, Interesting)
The speculation is on the basis of finding two chemicals which don't typically persist for long in each others presence, Hydrogen Sulphide and Sulphur Dioxide. BBC news has a summary [bbc.co.uk].
--
"Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."- JBS Haldane.
Let's all take a trip to self-delusion-land (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course if they were looking for signs of life, they would find some anomalous results that they could present as "amazing."
And from the
A simple experiment... (Score:3, Interesting)
Collect a sample. Run it through a chromatography column. Put a polarimeter on the end. If there's anything chiral, you have life. If everything is completely racemic, you almost certainly don't.
Interesting to consider... (Score:2)
This would seem to indicate that conditions were more conducive to life in the past. I wonder if it was the life that led to the current surface conditions...
Re:If you'd actually READ the article... (Score:2)
Actually, I guess the current state would be the equilibrium.
Sulfur compounds and "proof of life" (Score:5, Insightful)
But another sentence in the article implies that nevertheless the two gases can be found together. And certainly neither of them are produced by biological activity in this case.
As for carbonyl sulfide (also "carbon oxysulfide", or COS - essentially carbon dioxide with sulfur substituting for one of the oxygens), I don't know much about how it can be synthesized. I suspect that it is a product of careful hydrolysis of thiophosgene (CSCl2 - itself not an easy thing to make), but this would hardly be occurring naturally. I know that the gas is unstable, susceptible to hydrolysis into carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. This article [scientecmatrix.com] discusses its presence in our own atmosphere; the bulk of it comes from natural sources.
Incidentally, why do these articles on Slashdot of genuine scientific interest attract more stupid posts than usual? Everyone's trying to crack lame sci-fi jokes, and few are addressing the matter seriously.
Ben Bove (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.curtharmon.com/bova/tour/venus/defau
Beautiful logic! (Score:3, Funny)
**keep your eyes on my buh buh-buh-buh bump**
Ben Bove wrote a book about something similar. (Score:2)
Go and read about life on Venus in the book, it's a very good story
Venus' Atmosphere Implies 4.7GHz Pentiums (Score:3, Funny)
Temperature of 70C... check.
Earth-normal air pressure... check.
My God! Venus' atmosphere is just like the inside of a tricked-out 4.7GHz tower with neon and Nixie tubes.
NASA can save their money looking for life in an atmosphere like that. I've been to LAN parties -- you're not going to find a life anywhere near a box like that.
why venus second to mars? (Score:3, Interesting)
surely venus is a much better long-term proposition for colonisation than mars? yes i know about it's crushing and extremely hot atmosphere, but this is something that can potentially be adapted to or ameliorated - perhaps even comprehensively changed by some atmosphere engineering
what can not be changed about a planet is it's gravity - this is obviously a fundamental characteristic of a planet inextricably linked to it's mass - and mars' low gravity seems to me to be an intractable problem for colonists - ie maybe they could adapt to living there but they would never be able to return to earth
finally, from a poetic viewpoint it would be nice if the human race made it's first step out into the solar system towards the planet of love and not the planet of war
i welcome comments
Re:why venus second to mars? (Score:2)
thanks for yr reply
initially, of course, we would be interested in establishing bases on a planet with terraforming coming much later
so leaving aside the question of terraforming it still seems to me that venus is a better choice for establishing bases on the planet, simply again due to the fact of it's earthlike gravity
i can forsee the heat and pressure problems being dealt with - and i think it would not be necessary initially to establish bases on the surface of venus (with it's attendant volcanic dangers) but in some kind of bases in the atmosphere - perhaps something similar to buckminster fuller's "cloud 9" structures if you are familiar with them
as the new scientist article highlights, the heat and pressure in the atmosphere lessen with altitude above the surface - and so there might be some optimum altitude low enough to still provide decent gravity, but with a lesser heat and pressure environment to deal with
extreme craft capable of withstanding the heat and pressure could then descend to the surface to mine required materials
it may be obvious from this post that i have little knowledge of what i am talking about - in which case i beg your pardon - i will do a bit of a search for the book you mentioned - i simply wrote my first comment because as i said the idea of going first to mars is always so obviously assumed as the only course of action and it surprises me that venus is left out of the running
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
God is here (Score:3, Interesting)
That's us!
Actually, I find it more interesting to think about the universe, existance, to be life itself. After all, a body is nothing solid. Within a year, nearly all our cells are replenished. The food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe become our body when it enters. On the other hand, without the touch of God, natural laws, whatever you want to call it, life is null and void.
Since a body, any existing object, is nothing by itself (all matter is 99,99999...% empty), life must therefore be existance itself, a glorious play of patterns and experiences.
You can't even say stone is devoid of life. By watching earth's crust for millenias, stone and sand become just as lively and complex as any other organism.
What is life anyways? All the labels we stick to it, are nothing without our logical way of thinking. When our thinking defines reality, our thinking becomes reality! Thus if we're stuck with logic alone, that limits our reality.
Re:I just hope they would... (Score:3, Interesting)
Kintanon
Re:I just hope they would... (Score:2)
Kintanon
Re:I just hope they would... (Score:2)
It's not that hard, but confusing to people that are used to positive definitions only. To say that I am an atheist is akin to saying that I am not a racecar driver.
---Is it the specific belief that there are no gods, or is it no opinion either way?---
You've got it wrong. "There is a god" is a belief. "I don't believe in god" is a description of a person (and an atheist). "No belief" is not the same thing as "I believe no."
---A lack of opinion would make you an Agnostic.---
Some agnostics believe in god: on faith. Agnostic means "without knowledge" i.e.: I don't have any knowledge of god. Atheism/theism concerns _belief_, not knowledge. Agnosticism is not a midpoint between having a belief or not having it. A person who says that they are agnostic can always still be asked "yes yes, but do you believe IN a god?" If yes, then they are a theist. If no, then they are an atheist.
--- firm belief that there are no gods would make you equally as faith based as any other religion as there is no proof one way or the other that there are gods of any kind.---
I agree. However, not all atheists believe THAT there are no gods. Most just do not believe IN any gods, usually because they don't have any reason to believe (like me). Are there gods? Who knows: but I don't BELIEVE in them anymore than I BELIEVE in the existence of life on Venus.
Re:Life on Earth (Score:3, Informative)
Why? We have identified thermophiles that can survive in temperatures over 100C here on earth.
Re:Life on Earth (Score:2)
Besides, many of those bacteria are extremely hardy [enn.com]. They can withstand both hard vacuum and cosmic rays and still remain viable. We sent some up on a satellite a few years ago [spacedaily.com] and bacteria were able to survive fine with just a little soil for protection.
Re:Bear in mind that... (Score:2)
User Friendly, July 29, 2000 [userfriendly.org]