xkamelx
Global Moderator
Check Those Corners
Posts: 11,108
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Post by xkamelx on Aug 30, 2004 23:57:08 GMT -5
You make the call, a very interesting article... "The planet Venus is like Earth in many ways. It has a similar size and mass, it is closer to us than any other planet, and it probably formed from the same sort of materials that formed Earth. For years scientists and science fiction writers dreamed of the exotic jungles and life forms that must inhabit Earth's twin sister.
David Grinspoon, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, writes in his book, "Venus Revealed," that, through the Mariner 2 and other Venus missions, "we found our 'sister planet' to be chemically alien, as well as hot and dry to quite unearthly extremes. With these revelations, the twin-sister imagery quickly disappeared, and the notion that 'Venus is hell' took hold."Click Here For Complete Article
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Post by valderra on Aug 31, 2004 4:49:45 GMT -5
I have a little bit of info on Venus as well: Named for the Roman goddess of love and beauty, Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is often called Earth's "sister world." But although these planets are about the same size and orbit in the same neck of the solar system's woods, the similarities go downhill from there. Venus' noxious atmosphere, hellish temperatures and crushing surface pressure make it an extremely hostile place. The average surface temperature on Venus is about 470 degrees Celsius (about 890 degrees Fahrenheit), which is hot enough to melt lead. Venus has the slowest rotation of any planet in the solar system - a day on Venus is 243 Earth days long. In fact, its year (225 Earth days) is shorter than its day. Just think about it...Venus also rotates retrograde, which means the sun rises in the west. Nice huh?Because Venus rotates so slowly, its atmosphere moves in global-scale weather patterns, producing the distinctive u-shape of clouds. Ferocious winds in the upper atmosphere reach speeds of 370 kilometers (230 miles) per hour. Venus' surface pressure is about 90 times that of Earth (or equivalent to the pressure found one mile beneath Earth's oceans.) Its thick, poisonous atmosphere is comprised mainly of carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid. I hate even the slightest bit of pressure, never mind 90 times that of Earth. LOL So I definitely won´t be moving there in a hurry. ;D
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xkamelx
Global Moderator
Check Those Corners
Posts: 11,108
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Post by xkamelx on Aug 31, 2004 14:28:50 GMT -5
LOL Val, that place sounds like pure hell dosent it. It's amazing to think that there is that kind of enviornment out there. I wasnt aware of it's obiting and rotating habits either. Strange how the cards fell for that planet.
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Post by valderra on Aug 31, 2004 17:14:49 GMT -5
LOL Val, that place sounds like pure hell dosent it. It's amazing to think that there is that kind of enviornment out there. I wasnt aware of it's obiting and rotating habits either. Strange how the cards fell for that planet. Yes, Venus is the only planet in our solar system that rotates in a clockwise direction (or retrograde).
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Tobbles
Admiral
Pawn Terminator "I'll be back!"
Posts: 1,825
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Post by Tobbles on Nov 29, 2004 10:11:27 GMT -5
That i did not know. Bonus! I learned something today.
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lospud
Ensign
Sanity is a madness put to good use
Posts: 37
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Post by lospud on Mar 21, 2005 5:25:04 GMT -5
Astronomers refer to Venus as Earth's sister planet. Both are similar in size, mass, density and volume. Both formed about the same time and condensed out of the same nebula. However, during the last few years scientists have found that the kinship ends here.
Venus is very different from the Earth. It has no oceans and is surrounded by a heavy atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide with virtually no water vapor. Its clouds are composed of sulfuric acid droplets. At the surface, the atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of the Earth's at sea-level.
Venus is scorched with a surface temperature of about 482? C (900? F). This high temperature is primarily due to a runaway greenhouse effect caused by the heavy atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere to heat the surface of the planet. Heat is radiated out, but is trapped by the dense atmosphere and not allowed to escape into space. This makes Venus hotter than Mercury.
Another interesting fact about venus is that its rotation is very slow. A Venusian day is 243 Earth days and is even longer than its year of 225 days. Also Venus rotates from east to west. To an observer on Venus, the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east.
The strange thing is that Earth could have ended up like venus had it had been slightly closer and venus could have ended up like earth had it have been slightly further away.
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