How long
has there been hell on Venus?
Early in
the morning of November 9, 2005, the
European Space Agency (ESA)
launched
the Venus Express orbiter on a
mission to map the cloud-shrouded
planet. On April 11, 2006, the
spacecraft entered orbit around
Venus, began transmitting data, and
has been doing so since.
ESA's
mission was prompted by the many
unanswered questions about Venus:
1.
What force drives the atmospheric
movement?
2.
How does the atmosphere circulate?
3.
What are the clouds in the lower
atmosphere made of?
4.
Was there ever any water in the
atmosphere?
5.
Does internal radiation influence
the planet?
6. Is
there volcanic or tectonic activity?
Space
probes have been investigating Venus
since 1962, with 23 missions to
date. However, the vast majority of
those missions failed to achieve
their objectives. Most either
disintegrated while attempting to
land on the surface or simply did
not return data after orbital
insertion.
Venus
Express was one of the good ones,
and has accumulated more than three
years of observations, primarily the
face of the cloud tops lit by the
Sun's intense ultraviolet light, but
radar instruments have also produced
images that reveal chaotic surface
features. A
new topographical map
of the south polar region was
released to the press just recently,
combining more than 1000 individual
images.
Many
of the structures seen on Venus have
no analogues
to anything found on Earth, such as
the gigantic
domes,
the so-called "arachnoids,"
and "coronae."
There are places that do look like
Earth in some ways, though—broad,
flat-topped landforms bordered with
steep drop-offs resemble the
continental shelves and ocean basins
found on our planet. On Venus, of
course, there is no water in the
basins and the
highland regions
are red hot and barren.
The
atmosphere of Venus also contains
corrosive hydrochloric and
hydrofluoric acids in small amounts,
along with hydrogen chloride and
hydrogen fluoride. If those chemical
reagents react with the sulfuric
acid that is also present, then
hydrofluoric and fluorosulphuric
acids will form, which are able to
dissolve almost any type of rock.
According to conventional thinking
about the cosmogony of the Solar
System,
Venus
condensed out of the same primordial
cloud as the rest of the planets
billions of years ago. How long it
has possessed its current atmosphere
is open to question, but that it has
been as it is for at least 300
million years is agreed to for the
most part. That means the surface of
Venus has been subjected to an
onslaught of chemical erosion for
hundreds of millions of years.
After
all those millions of years, it is
expected that layers of sand or dirt
from the weathered basaltic surface
would have piled up in various
locations around the planet,
particularly inside craters, or in
the lowlands against the sides of
canyon or cliff walls. There appears
to be no sign of any significant
erosion, however. As the Russian
Venera landing craft discovered, the
surface of Venus is nothing but bare
rock, with a little debris inside
the cracks. This is a significant
anomaly for which no one has offered
a theory: how can Venus be both old
and young? If its entire surface has
been renovated in the last 300
million years, what caused that to
happen?
A
surprising observation by the Venus
Express orbiting radar package is a
confirmation that the tallest
mountain peaks exhibit high radar
reflectivity. The interpretation
given by mission specialists is that
the highest elevations are coated
with a semiconducting material. It
is not known what particular mineral
it might be, but it could be pyrite
or magnetite.
According to Electric Universe
theorist
Wal Thornhill,
the increased radar reflectivity is
because the highest elevations on
Venus are shining with St. Elmo's
Fire, a plasma phenomenon. It is
well understood that plasma is an
excellent reflector of
electromagnetic radiation, such as
radar. The greater the current
density in the plasma, the greater
the reflectivity.
Venus
(or, at least its surface) is
evidently young and still retains
the characteristics it once had as a
comet, visible to our forebears. As
Wal Thornhill wrote:
"Venus, with its cometary tail, is
evidently still discharging strongly
today after a recent cometary past
noted globally by ancient witnesses.
Venus was described variously as a
‘hairy star’ or ‘bearded star’ and a
stupendous prodigy in the sky.
Today, Venus’ comet tail operates in
the dark discharge mode and is
invisible. It can only be detected
by magnetometers and charged
particle detectors."
Stephen Smith
