Russian Scientist Claims Signs of Life Spotted On Venus

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?

[Zaldarr]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" -The Sagan Standard

Re:No pictures!~

[sanosuke001]

pics or it didn't happen!

Intelligence found

[gmuslera]

but on earth. We do pattern matching, even when there is none, we see shapes of gods in cluods, of the future in tea leaves, even faces in the moon and mars. This could have been totally random shapes. But of course, if it was life, specially one that are totally different from what we are used to see, could be a step forward for us, still too much people see earth as the center of the universe.

Re:WWCSD?

[LoyalOpposition]

"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:So...

[littlebigbot]

What in god's name does a "black flap" look like?

Re:Or not.

[Gripp]

I don't understand why there are not any pictures with this story.

Re:mirage

[afc_wimbledon]

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:WWCSD?

[mcgrew]

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:"Greenhoue effect"

[Xyrus]

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.