PLANET SEARCH
FUTURES:
Winner of Sir Arthur Clarke Award for 'Best Written
Presentation', 2005
Venus
Earth's
Twin (in size only)
- Diameter: 7,521 miles/12,104km
- Distance from Sun: 67million miles/108m km
- Length of Year: 225 days
- Rotation: 243 days
- Gravity (x Earth's): 0.9
- Axial Tilt:177.4 degrees
- Average Temperature: 470C
| Venus was once thought to be Earthlike, possibly even with oceans or vegetation beneath its eternal clouds. Probes started to visit Venus as early as 1962 (Mariner 2), and, together with radar and radio measurements starting in 1968 and continued in 1977 by the Arecibo radio telescope. . . |
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| . . . a picture was gradually built up of a 'hell planet', with temperatures of up to 200C, clouds of sulphur and sulphuric acid, constant lightning and crushing pressures. The surface is highly volcanic, though no active volcanoes have yet been detected. Images sent back by Soviet probes are surprisingly bright ~ hence I have shown rays of sunlight briefly penetrating the dense cloud layers. (From New Challenge of the Stars, 1978) |
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A view of Venus based on modern radar observations and the results from several probes. The landscape is basically volcanic, with wide shield volcanoes and huge lava-flows. Lightning flashes in the dense clouds of sulphuric acid. From Futures |
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| Just as there are proposals to terraform Mars (see Mars page), our sister world Venus could be given water and oxygen, and its rotation rate altered to more Earthlike. One suggestion is to cause ice asteroids ('iceteroids') to impact, in order to speed up its spin and to provide water. Oxygen could then be released using forms of algae, then more advanced vegetation. (Illustration for Analog, 1985, showing the thermal effects of the heated water. I drew upon my experiences in Iceland in 1981.) | ) |
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