Does anyone here know about Venus?

[Abalone]

With all our attention focused on Mars, and the recently discovered evidence for liquid water, it has caused me to wonder how much thought has been given to the possibility of life having once existed on Venus?

I know what the current environment there is like, and that it is nearly impossible that any life would exist there. But has this always been the case? If the water vapor in Venus' atmosphere was once liquid water, obviously the planet would have had a climate much more conducive to life as we know it. And since the Sun increases in intensity over time, is it possible that the solar radiation reaching Venus was "just right" for life, at one time?

Are there any plans to send further probes to Venus?

[orpheus last chant]

Well, IIRC, there are vapours and clouds, just not made of water . Sulfuric acid actually! The rest is CO2.

First link on Google (http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/venus/atmosphere.html)

[iridium]

I doubt that Venus has ever been right for life and that there was ever liquid water there

[Tufted]

On June 8th, Venus will transit (pass in front of the sun). No living human has ever witnessed one (most recent one was in 1882). It should be visible without optical aid , but eye protection, as with a solar eclipse, is MANDATORY.

Unfortunately, while perfectly situated for Europe, only the eastern US will get to glimpse it, and then only for a short while at daybreak. I sure hope it's clear, no waiting for the sun to burn off any fog this day.

[Hyndis]

While its highly doubtful that there's any life on Venus, genetically engineering life to live on Venus might be an easy matter.

Extremely high temperatures and tons of sulfur in the environment are quite similar to the deep sea vents. Of course there would be a water problem, as any water would only be in vapor form...but if a type of floating, sulfur-eating bacteria could be produced, that could possible go a long ways in terraforming.

And it makes for good sci-fi, too. :)

[Oolon Colluphid]

Yep, it's the Roman name for the goddess Aphrodite, goddess of love. She was 'foam-born' when Zeus castrated his father Kronos and cast the genitals into the sea.

[Late_Cretaceous]

The atmosphere of venus is very complex. And there is definitely something strange going on in the upper clouds (where temperature and pressure conditions are comparable to earth). At least one author (David Grinspoon (http://www.funkyscience.com) ) has prososed that pre-biotic conditions may exist there.

http://www.funkyscience.net/imagebank/images_ills_big/sulfurcycle.jpg

[Jesse]

Some have speculated that Venus could have microbial life, not on the hot surface but in the atmosphere, around 50 kilometers (30 miles) up where conditions are less hostile. Here's an article:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992843 The acidic clouds of Venus could in fact be hiding life. Unlikely as it sounds, the presence of microbes could neatly explain several mysterious observations of the planet's atmosphere.

Venus is usually written off as a potential haven for life because of its hellishly hot and acidic surface. But conditions in the atmosphere at an altitude of around 50 kilometres are relatively hospitable: the temperature is about 70 ‡C, with a pressure of about one atmosphere.

Although the clouds are very acidic, this region also has the highest concentration of water droplets in the Venusian atmosphere. "From an astrobiology point of view, Venus is not hopeless," says Dirk Schulze-Makuch from the University of Texas at El Paso.

[Loren Pechtel]

Originally posted by Abalone
With all our attention focused on Mars, and the recently discovered evidence for liquid water, it has caused me to wonder how much thought has been given to the possibility of life having once existed on Venus?

I know what the current environment there is like, and that it is nearly impossible that any life would exist there. But has this always been the case? If the water vapor in Venus' atmosphere was once liquid water, obviously the planet would have had a climate much more conducive to life as we know it. And since the Sun increases in intensity over time, is it possible that the solar radiation reaching Venus was "just right" for life, at one time?

Are there any plans to send further probes to Venus?

Venus probably went into runaway before life had time to develop. While I could believe airborne life I doubt it could develop (if you had a diverse biosphere before the runaway I could imagine it moving into the clouds) and the surface is just too hot.

[Shake]

I'm surprised the probes that made it to the surface lasted as long as they did. According to the image in orpheus' link, the surface is 460C (860F). This is more than warm enough to melt your typical solder which would be used on electronic components.

There is some stuff that will work at higher temps, but you can still melt it with an 800F iron.

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm surprised the probes that made it to the surface lasted as long as they did. According to the image in orpheus' link, the surface is 460C (860F). This is more than warm enough to melt your typical solder which would be used on electronic components.

There is some stuff that will work at higher temps, but you can still melt it with an 800F iron.

So, NASA probably took that into consideration in building the probes.

[Jesse]

Venus probably went into runaway before life had time to develop. While I could believe airborne life I doubt it could develop (if you had a diverse biosphere before the runaway I could imagine it moving into the clouds) and the surface is just too hot.

According to this (http://www.solstation.com/stars/venus.htm) site, there's a possibility it may have had oceans for a while before going into a runaway greenhouse effect:

Venus probably once had large amounts of water like Earth, but it may have all boiled away in a runaway greenhouse effect as the planet is now quite dry. This may have occurred because Venus is closer than Earth to the Sun, which has also grown about 40 percent brighter over the past 4.6 billion years. One recent theory suggest that Earth may suffer the same fate within 900 million years as Sol continues to brighten by about 10 percent.

Around 1988, Jeffrey Kargel of the US Geological Survey estimated that Venus may have lost its water around four billion years ago -- just 600 million years after the Solar System's birth. In 2003, David Grinspoon of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado suggested, however, that water may have persisted for another two billion years. Kargel's estimate should be considered to be a lower limit on when the planet dried up because it did not include the effect of clouds in the Venusian atmosphere. The clouds would have reflected sunlight back into space to cool the Venusian surface, so that its atmosphere would have been 100 Kelvin cooler than without them.

So, NASA probably took that into consideration in building the probes. Actually it was only the USSR that ever sent landers to Venus, the Venera probes (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/venera.html). All of them broke down within an hour or two due to the heat and pressure, but they did bring back some images from the surface, some of which were recently reprocessed with modern computer techniques (http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=786) to make them clearer:

http://66.240.198.75/albums/mission/aaw.sized.jpg (http://www.mentallandscape.com/Venera14Camera2.jpg)
(click for larger version)

You can see some more of these reprocessed images near the bottom of this page (http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_DigitalImages.htm).

[Shake]

So, NASA probably took that into consideration in building the probes.OK, I didn't do my research as well earlier. Even standard high-temp solder liquifies at around 300C. I'm sure they probably thought of that and tried to shield the electronics from the heat as much as they could. High-temp solder is typically used in areas of circuits with high current, like amplifiers and other high power applications like transmitters. However, these probes didn't necessarily need high power transmitters.

Anyway, the pressure probably eventually got to it, and either physically severed connections or destroyed the electronics. All I was saying earlier is that, sure they took this kind of stuff into consideration, but the environment is extremely hostile. And of course, just think of the temperature differentials, first from an Earth climate to the bitter cold of space and then to the inferno that is Venus.

[Jack the Bodiless]

It has been suggested that life appeared on Mars and "seeded" Earth via Martian meteorites. If so, I suppose it could have seeded Venus too.

However, if the runaway greenhouse effect was in place from the beginning, it might be difficult for Martian bacteria to adapt to the acidic conditions rapidly enough to get a toehold.

[Hyndis]

Would it be possible to make a probe that could survive for extended periods of time on the surface of Venus?

Without some sort of liquid nitrogen type cooling system, there is simply no way to keep the probe from being the ambient temperature of the atmosphere...so what could work in that kind of heat? I'm definitely no expert on electronics, but could it be possible to make something that could withstand 460C temperatures, and operate at that kind of heat?

Of course, materials would have to be changed out. My own computer is nicely cooled, so that it never reaches higher than 40C, and it only gets remotely close to there on very warm days, but with the ambient temperature so high, no heat sink type device could work. And a liquid nitrogen cooling supply would be rapidly depleted.

It also seems that most types of glass would melt at those temperatures, which could make cameras iffy.

However, if such a probe could be made to operate at these temperatures, with some sort of presure-sealed container for the guts of the probe, then it would be VERY interesting to stick a rover on Venus, like with whats been done on Mars. The only thing that could possibly be better would be an underwater rover swimming around under Europa's ice. :D

But while I'm no expert on electronics, if the materials of the probe can physically withstand the temperatures of Venus, and if these delicate materials are protected by some sort of presure shell, such as deep sea remote controlled probes, then, then is there any reason why such a device could not be made to work for extended periods of time? Barring any pesky lava flows, that is. :o

[Loren Pechtel]

Would it be possible to make a probe that could survive for extended periods of time on the surface of Venus?

Without some sort of liquid nitrogen type cooling system, there is simply no way to keep the probe from being the ambient temperature of the atmosphere...so what could work in that kind of heat? I'm definitely no expert on electronics, but could it be possible to make something that could withstand 460C temperatures, and operate at that kind of heat?

It would reqiure something totally new--that's well above the failure point of what we use these days. You might be able to do it with good insulation and a refrigerator. (Of course that implies a hefty powerpack--almost certainly a nuclear pile. Watch the environmentalists freak as it's certainly going to undergo a major failure in time.)
I wouldn't consider it totally impossible. After all, when they were designing the SR-71 they faced the same problem, albeit much milder. They were only facing 350F temperatures. They opted to put the critical stuff (the humans) in refrigerated suits and let everything else heat up. It causes some weird problems--sitting on the ground the plane's fuel tanks leak badly. Since it burns JP-7 (designed specifically for it--they needed something that's not going to mind the 350F temperature), though, this isn't a disaster.

Of course, materials would have to be changed out. My own computer is nicely cooled, so that it never reaches higher than 40C, and it only gets remotely close to there on very warm days, but with the ambient temperature so high, no heat sink type device could work. And a liquid nitrogen cooling supply would be rapidly depleted.

Check the CPU temperature. It's above that.

However, if such a probe could be made to operate at these temperatures, with some sort of presure-sealed container for the guts of the probe, then it would be VERY interesting to stick a rover on Venus, like with whats been done on Mars. The only thing that could possibly be better would be an underwater rover swimming around under Europa's ice. :D

The only reason for a pressure seal would be if the inside is refrigerated. Otherwise, let the pressure equalize. Most electronics won't care about 100 atmospheres.

But while I'm no expert on electronics, if the materials of the probe can physically withstand the temperatures of Venus, and if these delicate materials are protected by some sort of presure shell, such as deep sea remote controlled probes, then, then is there any reason why such a device could not be made to work for extended periods of time? Barring any pesky lava flows, that is. :o

Actually, deep sea probes generally are *NOT* protected other than portions that contain humans.

A story about the Trieste: They carefully specced silicon oil fuses. Some bean counter changed this to normal oil. Oops--below 6000' a normal oil fuse won't blow. When there was an electrical problem the fuse melted but it didn't open the circut. They survived this problem and replaced the fuses with the right ones for the next dive. Oops--the oil wasn't pure silicon, it had some hydrocarbon stuff in it. The same thing happened again.

[Hyndis]

I've got a nifty little temperature monitor thing on my machine, and my CPU rarely if ever gets above 40C or about 104F, while the motherboard itself is usually quite a bit cooler, as its got more space to cool off. I'm probably a bit paranoid about the heat...but at least its a cool machine. :) ;)

But I was wondering if electronics can function at the ambient temperature on Venus, assuming they're made of components that won't melt at that temperature. Sealing up the electronics might also be nessisary to protect against other harmful effects of the atmosphere, such as corrosion. Tons of sulfur, carbon dixoide, and the heat of a furnace just seem like a bad combination for fragile circuitry to be exposed to.