https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-2-missions-to-study-lost-habitable-world-of-venus Our nearest planet, Venus, is especially interesting in that it is possibly the first habitable planet in our solar system. Of course by now it is monumentally horrible due to subsequent change. It would be great to know exactly how that happened. One might wonder if Venus isn't a vision of future Earth. Plus, this could lead to better understanding of data we get from telescopic studies of exoplanets. The last time we visited close enough to see the surface was in 1978, and the sensing capabilities of today are vastly superior. The photographic resolution we'll get on surface topography will be be in far far greater detail as will other methods of sensing. It will be interesting to see how many minutes we can cause a spacecraft to survive in the inner atmosphere of Venus. A craft might not last more than a few short hours due to the hell that is Venus.
When we have technology to teraform a planet, Venus is indeed as interesting as Mars. I suspect changes in the sun are largely responsible for Venus' current state. But I'm guessing there.
The horrific conditions on Venus got me to thinking about SETI. We talk about finding exoplanets in the 'habitable zone' which is supposed to be within some distance of the star and not too hot or too cold...just right. But in our Solar system, Venus, Earth, and Mars are considered in the 'habitable zone'. A couple of comments; First, 2 out 3 planets in our 'habitable zone' are not habitable. And second, if we don't do better on Earth in the future, and we experience runaway climate change, 3 out 3 planets in our 'habitable zone' won't be habitable. Gotta wonder if many planets in the so-called 'habitable zone' go through a similar evolution as our Mars, Venus, and eventually Earth? We're screwing up Earth with population growth and industrialization in just a few hundred years and how bad will Earth be in another 50-100 years? Since I live in Northern CA, I seem to find myself at the epicenter of increased annual record temperatures, lower rainfall, multi-year drought, raging wild-land fires, local reservoirs at half-capacity, Lake Mead which feeds the Colorado River as well as generates electrical power for millions in several states, and irrigates the Central Valley, are the lowest levels ever. I'm sitting here enjoying my beautiful property and view, imagining what will happen almost overnight, if we have 2-3 years of this trend, and suddenly no water or electricity for tens of millions of people? No commerce? No food? And like it or not...how CA goes so goes the nation! Remember CA is the 5th largest economy in the world, generating 15% of GDP. I'm feeling it happen all around me and it's easy for me to see how quick we can become Venus...
I'm not sure we're screwing up the planet with CO2 emissions, which seems to be the biggest boogeyman in modern climate science, even though water vapor has a much larger impact on global temps. Population growth is a huge issue. Land is getting more and more expensive and scarce, and the more you cram people together, the more social issues you have. THAT is the challenge. And how to solve that morally and responsibly without genocide or mass abortion programs or the like is something we absolutely face as a species.
All very interesting points, I think. My understanding is that we have found Earthly life forms that can survive on Mars. And, our finding of phosphene on Venus was really interesting to me even though the conclusion remains that there is unlikely to be life there. The finding of that one chemical really got scientific minds thinking, making me believe we don't have all the answers on life elsewhere. It does seem reasonably important to figure out what happened to make Venus such a living hell.
IF life existed on Venus or Mars and made it to a point of being scientifically advanced or intelligent, it may well have been long enough ago that it would take an archaeological dig there to find it. Time, wind, erosion, and heat will decay things like nothing else over a million years. I'm open minded about there having been life on Venus, but I think if they were advanced enough to spread life to Earth, something went wrong. I think a much simpler explanation is that with the just-so conditions, life inevitably pops up wherever the chemistry and conditions permit. And I'm a Christian, and the concept of life elsewhere in the universe does not threaten my beliefs a bit.
I agree that population is an issue, and it's worth noting that human population growth is slowing and has been for quite some time. I really don't believe we're approaching a "population bomb". And, we are approaching very serious climate issues, as feedback loops are making it harder and harder for humans to make a difference. Melting sea ice allows oceans to soak up more heat. Melting tundra allows methane production, one of the worst greenhouse gases. Warming oceans expand. Etc. My understanding is that increases in CO2 lead to increases in water vapor in the atmosphere - a cooperative effort. It's not the case that greenhouse gasses do their dirty work as individuals without consorting with other mechanisms. Earth is one single system.
Yeah, but the question I have is whether the models are right or not. The damned "science" has been so politicized nobody knows the truth. The north pole was supposed to be ice-free by now and New York and other coastal regions flooded, and that didn't happen. Science is rigorous and hard when you do it right. If your hypothesis and models do not produce verifiable predictions, you're not doing "science". You'd doing something else that is ultimately irrelevant.
I'd never suggest that Christianity is being threatened by exploration of our universe. I don't believe that's true at all. It may be that some who believe certain things about Earth may need to change their minds, but that's true for every human on Earth.
And I did not mean to imply that you did at all. I also am in the group of folks that believe that evolution and religion are compatible, too. The Earth is old (4.5 billion years, if memory serves) and evolution happened, and I believe man - maybe not in its current form, has been around for a couple hundred thousand years.
I agree that the presentation of findings of science has been seriously polluted. But, I don't agree that the science itself has been polluted to any significant extent. I have no idea what you are quoting concerning predictions of warming effects. One of the problems we've seen is that climate science produces a range within which science has confidence. This is absolutely necessary, as ANY prediction has to dial in an understanding of what the world response will be during that period as well as to account for the normal aspects of confidence intervals in all natural sciences. I think it's pretty clear that we've done better than many thought we would do in terms of limiting greenhouse gas. We've sliced coal massively, for example. We've increased car mileage. We've developed wind power - the major source for electricity in Iowa, beating out the various fossil fuels. We've made solar power cost effective. When politicians see prediction ranges, they often pick one of the extremes to make totally politicized claims that benefit their own agenda - a seriously FALSE representation of science. This is NOT something that has happened on just one side of the political spectrum. It's well recognized that Al Gore presented worst case scenarios in some percentage of his publications, and while he noted that he was doing that at least some of the time, but undoubtedly not always. He justified his direction in part by the fact that he was attempting to wake up America to a serious threat that science IS stating exists.
The astronomers have a clear idea of how Venus became a planetary oven. But let's spend a few billion confirming that as though it matters. Why not, money is just a printing press away.
I can believe there are the building blocks of life as we know it, including early and basic life forms, spread around the Universe. The question might be in what types of places can they develop and evolve into intelligent life? Of course all we know is the human physiology, and while it's possible that some lifeforms might be able to develop in a Venus environment, as we think about SETI, we're going to focus on places that are similar to Earth. I was just saying in our Solar system 2-3 planets in the so-called 'habitable zone' are inhabitable and Earth could become number three. Unless terraforming planets becomes a cottage industry, I suspect there are few 'habitable' planets which means finding ET's has huge odds. And we've been exploring and studying our nearby planets for decades, and while all of them might have microbes, none of them to our knowledge have evolved into more capable species...
